Ultionis
by PointCaliber
Summary: Three months after the destruction of the Aparoid Home world, Krystal begins having strange dreams, where she sees fragments of someone else's life. But never gets to see their face, with each passing night she feels whoever it is getting closer and closer to Lylat.
1. Point Of Intersection

A/N: _Yay, after a bazillion re-writes of the story, the storyboard and getting over my anxiety of uploading it I present to you my second fanfic._

_No copyright intended all non-oc characters are the property of Nintendo and so forth. Alright, let's start!_ (_Currently under rewrite_)

* * *

**Chapter One**

.:_Point Of Intersection_:.

* * *

Kew, A volatile, filthy, disgusting, and poor planet. Operated by corrupted government, and gangs, it is one huge industrial waste land manufacturing arsenal weapons, illegal narcotics. Perfect place for the rich to amass slave labor force to work endless hours for little to no pay, Krystal knew this place well, its sights and smells were ingrained into her mind, no one could possibly forget such a cold depressing place, particularly her. She'd stopped there to gather her thoughts after narrowly escaping the destruction of Cerinia, her beloved lush jungle home world. It wasn't easy leaving everything behind, family, friends, but there was no going back, not after what _he_ did to them, regardless of how she felt the underlining thought of what her parents would of wanted drove her further.

In her culture mourning those lost in the past was a means of ceasing one's life, not very healthy for the mind or body, if her parents hadn't organised for her to depart from the doomed planet she'd wouldn't be where she is now, in free star system of Lylat in reach of her mate, just as the oracle had foresaw many years ago. However there was a lesson to be learnt on Kew, even if your future is determined, its not always straight forward.

* * *

"There is so much to tell, but time is extremely short." A elderly grey white vixen spoke wearing a tatty cloths, sipping tea from a old ceramic mug, "But I can tell you this much..."

A grey headed canine sat uncomfortably on a crude wooden stool that showed signs of decay, "Tell me what?" he said with a low raspy voice, curling his tail up onto his lap so it wouldn't touch the molded floor boards of the run down shack.

"Everything, but nothing." she replied with a tilt of her head, reaching for a tea pot on the small coffe table between them. "Tea?"

The dog shook his head, smelling the foul stench in the steam made him feel nauseous, "I must of been misinformed then, because I was told explicitly that, you'd tell me anything I needed to know."

The vixen gently placed her mug on the dirty floor between her feet, "Well then, you've came to the right starting point, but not the intersecting point. So to speak."

"Intersecting point? what the bloody hell does that mean?"

The vixen grinned leaning forward, looking him dead in the eye, "Lylat, my boy, Lylat, thats where you will find what you're looking for." she licked her lips, picking her mug up again. "Speaking of which, times up! You have to leave, they've found you."

Like smoke being blown away in the wind, an image of her home with her family happily seated around a large table, dressed in their formal tribal robes. Her father, Marcus seated on one side of the table next her mother both smiling at her, it's how she last imagined them before they taken by the forced super nova Andross had caused. It was both warming to see them, but disheartening at the same time, she wished so much to just be able to see them again with her own eyes not by memory.

She closed her teary eyes in hopes to wake up from this dream, but instead she felt a sudden rush of cold air around her as everything around her went dark,"My rule will not be denied!" An unmistakable voice echoed in the darkness "I will do to you what I did to your home."

"Andross…" she hissed, twisting and turning around in the darkness to locate the origin of his voice.

"Emperor Andross to you, daughter of the Crimson Sun." Replied the disembodied ape sounding as if he was getting closer to her proximity.

"You will never rule over anything you distasteful ape!" sudden spikes of panic started to eat away at her, she could feel Andross getting closer and closer.

"On the contrary my dear, I rule more than you think… Much like when I controlled your planet." He sneered

Krystal was consumed by fear and anxiety, he sounded like he was right behind her. "You deceived us with your lies and then destroyed us for no reason!"

"I have reason, I always have reason..." A large transparent blue violet body materialized in front of her, resembling his body when he was first found in a cryo escape pod in the Cerinian jungles, he was a giant compared to her. Andross stood over the vixen baring a sinister look on his face; Krystal started to back away from the spirit-like Andross keeping her vision centered on his yellow eyes, unable to break away. "What's wrong? Are you scared?" Andross chuckled hysterically "Or is that it that you are scared of being reunited with your family." The ape followed her.

Krystal closed her eyes, lightly shaking her head, her neck had stiffened in her panic and she just wanted to wake up from this nightmare, Andross reached out with his hand picking up the frightened fox, bringing her closer to his head, breathing heavily. "This is no dream little Krystal, it is no nightmare, you are where I have spent years of my life."

Krystal took quick breaths in attempt to calm her fear but she felt so far away from everything it just wasn't helping, "You know, you would make for an excellent experiment, I'd always wondered why your pitiful race had telepathy…" lifting her higher off the black floor and twisting her around like a ragdoll. "Maybe soon I will have that chance explore why."

The vixen worked up a small amount of courage to say something back but was stopped by a warm rush of air emanate behind the spectral Andross, it was soothing, energizing like a ray of light of a cold cloudy day. She closed her eyes tightly as the wind got stronger and stronger, it eventually died down but she could feel something different now, Krystal opened her eyes to only see desert with an eerie purple horizon, it seemed so empty but alive, nothing but the sun glared down on her with such intensity it was like a laser burning through piece of paper.

Her heart rate picked up when she heard oncoming foot steps crushing the sand, she span in circles, trying to to identify what or who was getting closer, "Hello!" Krystal screamed out in terror praying it wasn't Andross who was out in the vast sand ocean, "Is anyone out there?"

"Breath out." a raspy voice whispered from behind the vixen making her fur stand on end.

"What?" A cold metal hand pushed against her back, catapulting her down onto the searing hot sand which felt like she had fallen off a cliff to a very certain end.

* * *

_.:Cornarian Assault Carrier:._

Krystal burst into conciseness, panting and sweating from the excitement of falling in her dream, she looked around her already lit quarters aboard the ship sensing Fox's presence was nearby, finding him on the floor of her room. His head came into her blurred view, arising from the ground, slipping his hands behind her sweaty back to seat her upright, everything was blurred for the vixen the sudden shock of waking up coupled with the blinding light made it hard for her eyes to adjust.

Fox sat on the edge of the bed, wiping off the beads of sweat off the blue vixen's forehead, checking intently for any injures she may of suffered during her thrashing about during the nightmare. She stared at him blank worried expression, but took comfort in that he was there making sure she was okay and had done so for the past three months. These nightmares had started not long after the Aparoid home world was destroyed, each ending the same way, large open desert, same mysterious voice, then the fall back into reality.

She lent forward, resting her head on the brown vulpine's neck, wrapping her arms around him. His scent was soothing, and she enjoyed it, made her feel like she belonged somewhere. "Another nightmare?" Fox asked quietly.

Krystal nodded, tightly holding onto the vulpine's neck, she always felt safe around him and that's all she ever wanted to do since day one, is be around him but he was a very private man but a welcoming person, "Do you want to sleep in my room then?" Krystal nodded at his suggestion, he re-positioned his arms accordingly one under her legs and one behind her back; lifting the night gown wearing vixen up out of her bunk. Carrying her out into the quiet hallways of the ship, and into his room. Placing her down on his bunk, she made herself comfortable in his bed, pulling the sheets up and curling herself in them, "Thank you..." the vixen whispered, the sound of her voice always made Fox smile.

"Try to get some sleep, alright?"

Krystal closed her eyes with a nod, sinking her head into the soft pillow breathing in the familiar scent, drifting back off into her sleep. Fox ran his fingers lightly through the sleeping vixen's cobalt blue locks of hair, it was something his mother Vixy used to do when he had trouble sleeping as a puppy, it was something about the tips of her fingers running over his head that would put him to sleep in an instant and seemed to have the same effect on Krystal. His wrist communicator lit up with a new message from General Pepper showing up on the screen, he switched it off turning his attention back to the sleeping vixen, it worried him that she had been suffering from these nightmares that she descried as surreal enough for her to wake up distraught and drained of energy, but duty was calling now and no way around that, they needed the money for a new Great Fox which meant no time off, even if they deserved it.

Fox took one more look at the sleeping vixen, making sure she wasn't suffering from another bad dream. He pressed the button for the door, quietly walking out the door dressed in his green flight suit and trademark red scarf, down the hallway to the bridge elevator.

* * *

.:_Later_:.

Falco and Slippy sat opposite of each other in the mess hall of the borrowed assault carrier listening to the latest news on Cornarian Info Network, arguing about anything while eating their breakfast. Falco felt like he wasn't going anywhere with the current argument, grinding his beak together trying to suppress his ever growing rage about , "I'm not saying that frog boy, I'm saying this poor excuse for a ship couldn't hold its own in a skirmish, that's it! It has no shields just tissue paper thin hull and only one weapon!"

Slippy let out a long sign as he looked up to the ceiling. "So you're saying that it's a flying tissue box then? We are so lucky it's the newest line of ship being de- developed by Space Dynamics; sure it doesn't have shields but FRML missile lock system and larger hangers, imagine all the Arwings and Land masters we could carry at one time."

"Yeah, a ship with no cannons, no shields but a missile system that can only hold what? Four missiles it's a joke I hope we can ditch this thing soon; it's a huge embarrassment to be in, especially since it's called an 'Assault Carrier' Pfft more like 'Tissue box with two missiles stuck to each side."

The toad shook his head dismissively returning to his food "Whatever… Just saying to give it a chance, maybe if-"

"Shhh, I want to hear this." Falco cut off Slippy to turn up the volume on the holo-tv.

The two turned to the screen watching a tigress dressed in expressive business attire sitting in front of a large image saying 'Dead or Alive' "In early news, military officials have confirmed the sightings of three StarWolf ships called 'Wolfens'. Authorities beg that if you have any information on the where abouts of the mercenary pilots to contact them immediately." After the Aparoid planet went bust there was no sign of Wolf and his team, initially assumed dead by everyone, their space station in the Sargasso was left abandoned and untouched, even by the Cornerian military.

Falco turned the volume down not wanting to hear the rest, "At least they still want to catch those scumbags."

"But they helped us get to the Aparoid Queen..." Slippy blurted with a mouth half-full of food.

"Who cares, they're scumbags in the end, just you watch froggy they'll attack us they next time they get the chance, you'll see." Falco concluded, bringing his drink up to his beak and turning back to the TV.

The TV took over the ambience volume of the mess hall filling it with news reports and ads, Slippy finished with his food and took it over to the kitchen were the automated system would sort the culinary out for you and clean its accordingly.

Krystal walked in with her blue flight suit on all ready to go, moving over the kitchen area to grab the morning requirements "Moring Slippy."

"Moring Krystal." The toad replied politely, trying to get the automated cleaner to work. "Going somewhere?"

"Fox didn't tell you?" Krystal answered with slight confusion in her voice. "We have a new mission."

"Mustn't be anything to difficult then I suppose…" Slippy muttered with a sigh. Turning his attention to his ringing wrist computer with a picture of Fox's portrait on the screen, Slippy pressed a small green key to accept the transmission from Fox. "What up Fox?"

"Slippy, get everyone to the bridge for a briefing." The vulpine's radio sounding voice spoke.

"Copy that Fox, we'll be up there in a second, Slippy out." The toad pressed the same key he pressed earlier to end the transmission. Krystal with no real time to eat now forced a piece of toast into her mouth and headed over to the TV engrossed avian to let him know to head to the bridge.

Once the three had finished up eating and cleaning they headed to the elevator that connected the bridge to the rest of the ship, even tho the elevator ride was short in distance but long in the time it took to reach the top. When it did it made a high pitched 'ding' sound followed by the annoyingly slow sliding doors.

Krystal was the first to exit the lift followed by Falco then Slippy. Fox and Peppy were already in the bridge waiting for the trio to arrive; ROB was the forefront of the bridge piloting the ship to their destination of Sauria.

Falco, Slippy and Krystal walked over to where Fox and Peppy were looking a large incident report sprawled over a large blue holographic screen, reading preliminary report by the recon team of their expected cargo, "What'd you think Pep? Seems a bit- I don't know, extreme to send us to pick up a crashed piece of sheet metal."

The old hare grinned and quiet 'hmm' at Fox's question "Well, most of the military's resources are tied up with the relief effort at home and we're one few groups who can from points A to B the quickest."

"So… what's the deal-eo old man?" Falco chimed in behind Fox and Peppy, scanning over the large document over the screen.

"So good you finally join us Falco, Krystal and Slippy We were just reading over this report compiled by the team on the ground." Peppy announced "Looks like we're going to be doing some heavy lifting."

"What are we lifting exactly?" the azure vixen spoke up.

Peppy pressed a few keys on the keyboard to cycle through a series of pages on the report until he got one a section titles 'Object Specifications/Analysis' that noted down the mass, dimensions, crew, internal/external structure, shielding, power, role and the weapon systems. Most of the fields were filled in with 'N/A' except crew, dimensions and role.

"It says here it's roughly twenty meters in length, four meters in height and only carried a crew of one unidentified male. They speculate it could be a combat shuttle but that's just a speculation."

"Anything on the crew member Peppy?"

The hare rubbed his chin and scrolled down the page to an additional notes box. "_Appears to be male Cornarian canine, unconscious, estimated five-foot-ten, white/grey tail fur, suffered type-3 plasma wound to chest, left peck, wearing reinforced flight suit with full head helmet, attempts to remove the helmet at suit have failed. Suspect magnetic locking system to prevent unwanted removal._"

"Seems to easy, why send us?" Falco said sounding slightly disappointed, obviously expecting action. "Like, c'mon any one could do a pick up run."

Peppy cycled through more pages of the document, then stopped on the one he wanted. "Hmm, they sent a priory one broadcast to their mission handler whom relayed it to their superiors until it reached the ears of the general, then us."

"ROB" Fox flicked over to the droid "How long until we're at Sauria?"

ROB turned his mechanical body around to the direction of the crew. "ETA thirty-one minuets at current velocity." The robot replied in his monotone voice.

Fox turned back to the team, "Let's get ready then." but knowing Lylat as Fox does, something was going to happen, it wasn't going to turn out to be a simple fly in and pick up.

* * *

_What do y'all think eh? Pretty crappy eh. I'm slow to release chapters, very slow. However I should be able to release chapter 2 soon as it's almost done. Anyways review it if you want, if there are any, point out any grammatical/spelling mistakes if I missed them, if you want or not so you can laugh at me…_

-Point Caliber


	2. First Impressions

A/N: _I hope this is much better quality than before :)_

* * *

**Chapter Two**

.:_First impressions_:.

_.:Sauria, Snow Horn Wastes Planes:._

.:_An Hour Prior to StarFox Arrival_:.

* * *

Sauria, A quiet class H world that orbited the around the Lylat star, after the mercenary team called StarFox was sent to investigate the planet when a distress signal was intercepted. It was soon colonized by the neighboring planet of Corneria. Where it many of the migrating civilians came to experience it's new sights and ally themselves with the indigenous population, it was sound alliance between the two, the Cornerians agreed to keep to the already developed sections of the planet which included the Walled City and sections of Thorn Tail Hollow. In the wake of the Aparoid invasion the lightly defended planet was severely damaged, most of the non-combatant Cornerians were evacuated leaving their defense force behind to with what ever armaments they could muster.

When the Aparoids arrived, they came in overwhelming force that utterly wiped them off the face of the planet, some of the dinosaur tribes did what they could to help, but to no avail. In the months following the planet was placed under a quarantine when it was discovered the bio-metal that made the outer exoskeleton on an Aparoid could physically infect and control most types of sentient life, turning them into walking zombie cannon fodder, incapable of self control.

Since Corneria had a finite amount of resources to spare they first had to rebuild their capitol before turning their attentions to the other inhabited planets. However a small anomaly riffled with dark matter was detected hurdling towards the planet. A two man team consisting of Miyu Lynx and Fay Daniels, both veterans of the Lylat war and now the Aparoid Invasion were dispatched under orders from the recovering General Pepper, to scout out the area and recover what ever usable contents.

* * *

Fay sat on the edge of her seat tightly encompassed by the equipment of the medical section of the tent, closely studying the armored flight suit of the unconscious canine they'd recovered from a partially buried ship. Brushing over with a fine tooth comb looking for any latch, button or nook that would give leeway into removing the chest plate and helmet. "Hhmm…" There were two eye slits covered with a ballistics glass that faintly glowed blue indicating it was powered and still active.

The entire suit was held together with small magnetic locks that hid under the blackened exoskeleton plating, she figured that out when her necklace starting pulling itself towards the supposed knee joints from leaning over to closely. It also seemed to absorb the planet's natural dark matter like the spell stones that to do the same thing to stop chunks of the planet from being pushed out into orbit.

"Find anything yet?"." A feminine voice yelled from the other side of the tent.

Fay let out an angry sigh, putting her tools back onto the metal table. "Not yet, Miyu…" the spaniel rubbed her forehead to relieve the stress on her eyes, "And you said they'd be here ages ago, like, c'mon…"

"I know, I know, give me a break..." Miyu shot back sounding equally frustrated. "I'll tell you what."

"What?..." fay said with a tired moan.

"If you wake this guy up, before they get here and I'll get that new G-Diffusion system you've always wanted for your Arwing" Miyu yelled back, hopping to lighten the mood. "Good deal yeah?"

Fay's heart skipped a beat at the idea for getting a brand spanking new G-Diffusion for her Arwing Interceptor, even tho it was fine as it is; it's always good to stay ahead of the competition, "Deal." But it all seemed too good to be true, more a short term pick me up and something like that doesn't come cheap. The spaniel brainstormed upon a few ways to wake up their patient, she was no medical practitioner fact she had only just managed to pass her medical exams in basic training so whatever idea she'd conjure up in her mind would inevitably be a bad one, _"Maybe if I banged hard enough on his helmet, nah… It looks like it's all padded up underneath… What if I wake him up with a static shock! nah, it's probably got some stupid anti-emp system. C'mon Fay, think!"_

She wheeled her chair over a computer desk, placing her hand on the middle of the table, pulling it up displaying a holographic screen with a large exploded technical layout of the alien's reinforced flight suit. It definitely hadn't been built in Lylat or their would be a serial number identification tag on it, stating the manufacturer, who bought it and when. As suspected the suit had magnetic locks to better hold the individual limbs and joints together without the need of small mechanical parts that are expensive and time consuming to fix. However this suit was completely covered in one huge external force field which would ever only been seen with a personal barrier/ reflector shield, where or who ever he got the suit from must of wanted him dead judging by the shot to the chest.

"What's that?" Fay squinted at a outlined drawing of the rear neck plates, they had small pressure pads that connect to small locks that encompassed the base of the neck. "Must be a tap-to-release system, interesting." she rotated the image, getting a full view of the integrate system. "Very cool, alight seems easy enough..."

Fay pushed herself back to the bed, raising the upper half of the bed so he was in a more suitable position for her to remove the full head helmet. She pushed his head to the side revealing the back of the alien's metal neck, she had to lean in real close to see what she had to press; it was a small line indentation in the middle plate marking which one to press but she wasn't sure how hard she had to push to make it unlock. She felt like it didn't need to be forced to hard to deactivate the locks but the image on the hologram suggested otherwise.

She gently reached out with her index finger, running the tip across the indentation from one end of it to the next and quickly pulling away. A faint blue light flashed from behind the plate, making Fay's heart skip a beat since she wasn't expecting anything to happen. The eye lights turned off as the plates around the neck started to separate from each other, sequentially folding their way up to the base of the skull, a split cracked the helmet in-half hissing pressurized air.

Fay placed both hands on both sides of the cold metal helmet, gently sliding it off the alien's head with ease; revealing a grey and white colored canine. The entirely of is muzzle was white; which trailed down the center of his neck and just up and between his eyes. It was hard for the spaniel to determine which species of canine he was, at first glimpse he seemed to be a kind of wolf/fox hybrid or wolf/ something else but not many foxes she knew were colored white and grey.

"Hey Miyu! Get in here, I got it off!"

A few seconds later Miyu came in with a giggle, "That sounded so wrong from where I was." the lynx scanned the unconscious canine with a grin "He's cute, imagine what Bill would say if he heard what you said."

"Yeah because taking things out of context is funny..."

"It is to me."

Fay shook her head, "Whatever... Could you get the Epi-pen out of the that medical foot locker over there?" Miyu shuffled her way through the tight enclosure to the base of the bed, giving the locking mechanism a light kick to open the locker.

"Is this it?" she said waving a yellow pen around.

"Yeah, pass it here?" Miyu underarm threw the yellow tube to the spaniel; When she caught it she glanced over the instructions printed on it. "Might want to get your blaster out, don't know how this guy is going to react."

"Should be more worried about you're uncle." The lynx un-holstered her blasted setting it to stun, giving it a light spin around her figure. "We don't want a repeat of Eladard."

"Pfft, he's so doped up on those painkillers he doesn't know what he's saying half the time." Fay said removing the protective cap, clamped her jaws on the hard plastic cap pulling as hard as she could. "Don't worry about it."

"Uh-huh." Miyu crossed her arms, still unsure about Fay's disregard for resuscitating unknowns, "You sure you know how to use that thing? Like I hear you only just managed to pass your medical exams."

"His suit put him to sleep before impacting the planet so his muscles would be nice and relaxed, not tensed or he'd have broken bones all over." Fay placed the tip of the needle on the open wound on the alien's chest since it's in the same place as the heart. "Hopefully the adrenaline in this thing should be enough to wake him up."

Fay pressed down on the pen until it made a click, propelling the fine needle through the alien's burnt hide; the injector flashed red indicating the epinephrine (Adrenaline) had be delivered but the canine remained still unaffected by the dose. The spaniel split open one of the dog's eyes, he had large turquoise blue eyes with a faint cloud like coloration of purple, running a light across it for any dilation, none at first. When she did it again she was taken by surprise, the dog launched his left hand up to her throat, choking her while he used his right hand to disable her left arm that had the small light in it, suspecting it was some sort of weapon.

Miyu tried to get a safe firing line at the armored canine, but Fay was block the shot. Using her as a shield he slowly got up and out of the small bed looking dead into Fay eyes. She was panicking, her vision was slowly blurring to a grey. It was nearly impossible to breathe with the alien's vice like grip around her neck, she tried to use her free hand for leverage but he was lifting her off the flooring just enough to stop her from being able to breathe. Noticing the spaniel's closeness to fainting he relinquished his grip around her neck and arm, spinning her around, back to his chest and un-holstering her blaster from her waist and pressing it again the side of her head.

Fay was all but limb now, feeling light headed and deprived of air she hadn't the slightest idea of what was going on. "Let her go!" Miyu commanded the dog, still trying to get a guaranteed shot on the alien.

"Three seconds, and I'll shoot! Three... Two..." Miyu pressed the trigger with inch of firing when she noticed her gun was faintly glowing a bubbly purple aura and shacking, before she could fire off the stun round the gun violently jerked up smacking her square on the nose sending a numbing wave of pain up her face, causing her to accidently sending a shot straight up through the roof of the tent.

Miyu stumbled down onto her tail from coupled effects of the surge of pain from her nose and the shock of the unexpected gun shot from the frightening close range, she did her best to maintain her cool by trying to pretend the pain wasn't apparent. After wiping the blood from her nose she re-aimed her blaster at the hostage taking alien.

He scoffed at the lynx's even demising power in the situation, feeling the adrenaline wearing off his weight shifted slightly to the left with the feeling of his chest being on fire, he shoved Fay out of his reach onto the rubber flooring, tossing her blaster near her. The canine backed up to the corner of the room, falling onto his knee in pain, taking deep slow breath in.

Fay got up taking aim at the viable wound on his chest, sending off the white stream line bolt of concussive energy speeding towards him, impacting with the sweet sound of crippling thud, if anything Fay was felt allot less angry now she'd gotten even.

The dog yelped in pain, warping his arms around his chest and bending over, using his back as a shield, yelling out in a foreign language that defiantly wasn't Cornerian, Venomian or even Saurian.

Fay helped her friend up, both training their guns on their new '_friend_'. "What did he say?"

"I don't know, I'm not a friggin' linguist. You ask him..."

"Me!? If you didn't notice I was almost choked out!"

"Well I guess you know him better then."

Fay rolled her eyes, she got down the alien's level aiming her gun as close as possible to his head, gesturing with her finger for him to look up. When he did Fay hit him across the head with her gun, almost knocking him off balance. "What the bloody hell was that for!"

The two women were taken back, one second he was shouting in some alien language now he was speaking in perfect Cornerian. "Like far out, I did not deserve that! How would you like it if I shot you point blank in the bloody chest then smacked you across the head with rock!?" his accent was different as as well with a low raspy quality to it, defiantly not from Lylat. "Imagine if I had woken you up from-"

"Shut up!" Miyu roared at him, taking him by surprise with her sudden burst of rage, he did as told. "Now, I've got some questions for you buddy and you're going to answer them. Understood?"

He nodded with wide eyes, "Y- yes sir, I mean mam"

"Where you from?"

"Uhhhh- Kew, yeah Kew."

"Why are you here?"

"...Bad warp jump?"

"Who shot you?"

"Shot?- Oh, that- that's was umm self-inflected, yeah."

Miyu got down to eye level with the dog with a seriously intimidating look on her face, "That is the biggest damn lie anyone has ever told me, where we're going they're going to lock you up were the sun don't shine."

"Been there, done that." he blinked rapidly, trying to avoid her gaze.

"You-"

"Ahhh, Miyu we've got company." Fay spoke up, interrupting the lynx to look at the holographic screen. On it was a large transparent blue square with a green circle to represent their location, outside from that where range lines or range finders all spaced one hundred meters (109 yards) from the next. The furthest line away was five hundred meters that had red triangles surrounding them, all giving off a Aparoid signal. "Aparoids, lots of them..."

"How long before they get here?" Miyu asked.

Fay tapped a few keys, the weather outside was dense blizzard and wasn't showing any signs of easing up."In these conditions maybe in a ten minutes at max, what me to send that emergency broadcast to base?"

Miyu nodded, "Do it." she turned to the dog sitting in the corner of the room that now had a bleeding nose, "What's with you."

"Me? Nothing, nothing at all." he said covering his nose to stem the flow of blood.

"Looks like we're going to have to help each other out here, there's these big ugly metal space bugs coming to get us and so I think we should get to better know each other, what'dya say?"

The canine look around the small room, "Alright..." he said with a weak smile.

Miyu smiled back warmly, extending her hand. "Miyu Lynx, lieutenant of the Cornerian Military, special ops division. And that there behind me is specialist Fay Daniels."

"Hi." Fay said with a quick turn of her head before returning to her typing.

"Feroes Voux." he grabbed hold of the lynx's hand, giving it a shake. "Not in any kind of military, Miss Lynx."

Miyu lifted him to his feet and seating him on the bed, "Do you know how to use a gun?"

He nodded "Yes, but I seem to have misplaced it." Miyu moved over to a large locker, swinging it open displaying all the bits of equipment Fay and Miyu had pulled off him when they found him. She reached in, grabbing a sheathed one handed sword with a bent hilt and a funny looking blaster; tossing the two weapons to the best landing next to him. "Could you also throw me that small silver case?"

"This one?" she grabbed a small rectangular box, no bigger than the palm of her hand.

"Yeah." Miyu under arm threw it, not sure how fragile it was. He caught it, flipping open the case and pulling out a small white strip.

"What is it?" the lynx asked as he stuffed the strange material in the side of his mouth.

"Bio-regenerative gum, uses DNA from your saliva to better heal your cuts and what not." Feroes spat out the gum, it was more a thick rubber like foam he rubbed on the burn. When it contacted the blistered hide it hissed and fizzed making the lynx cringe, "Ow yeah, loads better." he said biting him bottom lip.

"How long Fay?" the spaniel shrugged at the question, the Aparoids had jammed their communications soon after appearing on the radar and where attempting to upload a virus onto the computer to stop the emergency signal from being broadcasted to the relay buoys in orbit around the planet. Luckily for Fay it was child's play, the virus was primitive at best and lacked the coding to avoid the spaniel's much more advanced counter measures which would isolate the main files and upload important lines of code to her wrist computer for analysis later.

"Done, but I'm not sure how fast who ever is coming to get is going to here."

"We'll just have to hold out long enough then..." Miyu turned to Feroes, "Can you move around better now?"

The canine took to his feet, stretching his arms. Attaching the sheathed sword to his back, magnetically locking into place and the strange pistol attached itself to his thigh guard, "Good to go Miss Lynx."

"How far out at the Aparoids now?" Fay maximized the radar image, the Aparoids were almost halfway to the campsite but seemed to be slowing down for something else.

"Not long, but they seem to be slowing down... Oh that's- that's not good."

"What is it?"

"Moths, two of them... Um, is it to late to say I told you so?"

Miyu stormed out of the small medical wing into the entrance/living area, opening all the view ports to shoot out of when the android insects arrived. They hadn't brought any light weapons with them since they hadn't anticipated the Aparoids to still be functional in the Lylat system, sure there were the odd one or drone class insect still walking about with no purpose but the on coming force was organized more so than the main force that attacked Corneria. Picking up the heavy duty winter coats they'd used earlier, Miyu knew they weren't going to hold out against a small swarm of Aparoids particularly in this weather running out into the blizzard seemed the best way to evade them if help didn't arrive within the next few minutes.

She came back in and threw Fay her favorite pink stripped jacket, "Alright here's the plan you two, it's an absolute snow storm out there so that means little to no viability you'll just have to go off your radar Fay. Now if the shielding around this site is breached we turn our tails and run, okay? sound easy enough new guy?"

Fay raised her hand, "Yes Fay?"

"Are we still up for that deal?" Fay asked with a smirk.

Miyu shook her head annoyed, "Not funny. How about you Feroes? Any input?"

He shook his head in disagreement, "None Miss Lynx."

"Good, Fay pack up what ever you need to take with you, Feroes you stay in here with her. I'll be in the next room keeping a watch." Miyu finished zipping her jacket out and went back out into the section of tent she was in only moments ago.

Fay went to work, shutting down and disconnecting all the pieces of electrical equipment for departure, most of it was bulky long range communications gear and basic field research equipment they commonly used when on long missions in remote areas in the Lylat system were the military force in not readily available for pickups and drop-offs. So what ever they needed to take had to be durable, reliable and versatile, very important traits Fay made sure of before selecting the gear to take.

As she went about dismantling everything with haste Feroes stood and watched in the dark, he wanted to ask if he could help but everything around him was alien making him paranoid about breaking something. Before he could open his mouth to ask a voice in the back of his head faintly screamed, making his ears perk up to make sure he wasn't just hearing things, it isn't every day you hear a distinct voice yell at you in you're mind but this was different. Feeling his heart beat was speeding up, he twisted and turned around the room desperately looking for what ever it was causing the voice in his head.

"Done." Fay popped up from the floor, dusting her hands. "Whats up with you?"

He didn't reply, just stared back with horrified face. Before she knew it he was tackling her into the neck room, her hearing was deafened like an explosion had gone off right next to her completely dazing the spaniel. When she opened her eyes, Miyu was yelling and screaming at her eventually she was lifted to her feet by the alien canine when Miyu had disappeared from her sight. Fay turned her head to see were she stood moments ago was in flaming tatters, looked like had run a giant saw blade straight down the middle of it.

Miyu stood at the door way, wildly waving her arm about meaning they were leaving. Fay stumbled too it still not able to hear properly, it didn't help the flooring was uneven. A meter before reaching the lynx Fay put one foot wrong, and went down with a turn of her ankle. Miyu slung Fay's arm over neck to hoist her up to her feet, Fay took another step with the same foot but yelped in pain when the heel of her foot touched the floor.

Feroes peeled Miyu from Fay's hold, he grabbed Fay's left arm and pulled it over his shoulder forcing her to lean over his back, he pushed upwards with his legs resting Fay across his shoulders fireman style, the hilt of his sword poked into Fay's soft side but the problem was secondary compared to the rushing Aparoid swarm. As Miyu vanished into the blizzard Feroes followed with Fay on his shoulders, looking back she could see the bright lights from the Aparoid crawlers decimating the camp, ripping up ever inch of it in search of the three.

If help didn't come soon, the military was sure to find them face down in the snow.

* * *

_All nice and re-written :D_

-Point Caliber.


	3. Whiteout

A/N: _I hope this is much better quality than before :)_

* * *

**Chapter Two**

.:_First impressions_:.

_.:Sauria, Snow Horn Wastes Planes:._

.:_An Hour Prior to StarFox Arrival_:.

* * *

Sauria, A quiet class H world that orbited the around the Lylat star, after the mercenary team called StarFox was sent to investigate the planet when a distress signal was intercepted. It was soon colonized by the neighboring planet of Corneria. Where it many of the migrating civilians came to experience it's new sights and ally themselves with the indigenous population, it was sound alliance between the two, the Cornerians agreed to keep to the already developed sections of the planet which included the Walled City and sections of Thorn Tail Hollow. In the wake of the Aparoid invasion the lightly defended planet was severely damaged, most of the non-combatant Cornerians were evacuated leaving their defense force behind to with what ever armaments they could muster.

When the Aparoids arrived, they came in overwhelming force that utterly wiped them off the face of the planet, some of the dinosaur tribes did what they could to help, but to no avail. In the months following the planet was placed under a quarantine when it was discovered the bio-metal that made the outer exoskeleton on an Aparoid could physically infect and control most types of sentient life, turning them into walking zombie cannon fodder, incapable of self control.

Since Corneria had a finite amount of resources to spare they first had to rebuild their capitol before turning their attentions to the other inhabited planets. However a small anomaly riffled with dark matter was detected hurdling towards the planet. A two man team consisting of Miyu Lynx and Fay Daniels, both veterans of the Lylat war and now the Aparoid Invasion were dispatched under orders from the recovering General Pepper, to scout out the area and recover what ever usable contents.

* * *

Fay sat on the edge of her seat tightly encompassed by the equipment of the medical section of the tent, closely studying the armored flight suit of the unconscious canine they'd recovered from a partially buried ship. Brushing over with a fine tooth comb looking for any latch, button or nook that would give leeway into removing the chest plate and helmet. "Hhmm…" There were two eye slits covered with a ballistics glass that faintly glowed blue indicating it was powered and still active.

The entire suit was held together with small magnetic locks that hid under the blackened exoskeleton plating, she figured that out when her necklace starting pulling itself towards the supposed knee joints from leaning over to closely. It also seemed to absorb the planet's natural dark matter like the spell stones that to do the same thing to stop chunks of the planet from being pushed out into orbit.

"Find anything yet?"." A feminine voice yelled from the other side of the tent.

Fay let out an angry sigh, putting her tools back onto the metal table. "Not yet, Miyu…" the spaniel rubbed her forehead to relieve the stress on her eyes, "And you said they'd be here ages ago, like, c'mon…"

"I know, I know, give me a break..." Miyu shot back sounding equally frustrated. "I'll tell you what."

"What?..." fay said with a tired moan.

"If you wake this guy up, before they get here and I'll get that new G-Diffusion system you've always wanted for your Arwing" Miyu yelled back, hopping to lighten the mood. "Good deal yeah?"

Fay's heart skipped a beat at the idea for getting a brand spanking new G-Diffusion for her Arwing Interceptor, even tho it was fine as it is; it's always good to stay ahead of the competition, "Deal." But it all seemed too good to be true, more a short term pick me up and something like that doesn't come cheap. The spaniel brainstormed upon a few ways to wake up their patient, she was no medical practitioner fact she had only just managed to pass her medical exams in basic training so whatever idea she'd conjure up in her mind would inevitably be a bad one, _"Maybe if I banged hard enough on his helmet, nah… It looks like it's all padded up underneath… What if I wake him up with a static shock! nah, it's probably got some stupid anti-emp system. C'mon Fay, think!"_

She wheeled her chair over a computer desk, placing her hand on the middle of the table, pulling it up displaying a holographic screen with a large exploded technical layout of the alien's reinforced flight suit. It definitely hadn't been built in Lylat or their would be a serial number identification tag on it, stating the manufacturer, who bought it and when. As suspected the suit had magnetic locks to better hold the individual limbs and joints together without the need of small mechanical parts that are expensive and time consuming to fix. However this suit was completely covered in one huge external force field which would ever only been seen with a personal barrier/ reflector shield, where or who ever he got the suit from must of wanted him dead judging by the shot to the chest.

"What's that?" Fay squinted at a outlined drawing of the rear neck plates, they had small pressure pads that connect to small locks that encompassed the base of the neck. "Must be a tap-to-release system, interesting." she rotated the image, getting a full view of the integrate system. "Very cool, alight seems easy enough..."

Fay pushed herself back to the bed, raising the upper half of the bed so he was in a more suitable position for her to remove the full head helmet. She pushed his head to the side revealing the back of the alien's metal neck, she had to lean in real close to see what she had to press; it was a small line indentation in the middle plate marking which one to press but she wasn't sure how hard she had to push to make it unlock. She felt like it didn't need to be forced to hard to deactivate the locks but the image on the hologram suggested otherwise.

She gently reached out with her index finger, running the tip across the indentation from one end of it to the next and quickly pulling away. A faint blue light flashed from behind the plate, making Fay's heart skip a beat since she wasn't expecting anything to happen. The eye lights turned off as the plates around the neck started to separate from each other, sequentially folding their way up to the base of the skull, a split cracked the helmet in-half hissing pressurized air.

Fay placed both hands on both sides of the cold metal helmet, gently sliding it off the alien's head with ease; revealing a grey and white colored canine. The entirely of is muzzle was white; which trailed down the center of his neck and just up and between his eyes. It was hard for the spaniel to determine which species of canine he was, at first glimpse he seemed to be a kind of wolf/fox hybrid or wolf/ something else but not many foxes she knew were colored white and grey.

"Hey Miyu! Get in here, I got it off!"

A few seconds later Miyu came in with a giggle, "That sounded so wrong from where I was." the lynx scanned the unconscious canine with a grin "He's cute, imagine what Bill would say if he heard what you said."

"Yeah because taking things out of context is funny..."

"It is to me."

Fay shook her head, "Whatever... Could you get the Epi-pen out of the that medical foot locker over there?" Miyu shuffled her way through the tight enclosure to the base of the bed, giving the locking mechanism a light kick to open the locker.

"Is this it?" she said waving a yellow pen around.

"Yeah, pass it here?" Miyu underarm threw the yellow tube to the spaniel; When she caught it she glanced over the instructions printed on it. "Might want to get your blaster out, don't know how this guy is going to react."

"Should be more worried about you're uncle." The lynx un-holstered her blasted setting it to stun, giving it a light spin around her figure. "We don't want a repeat of Eladard."

"Pfft, he's so doped up on those painkillers he doesn't know what he's saying half the time." Fay said removing the protective cap, clamped her jaws on the hard plastic cap pulling as hard as she could. "Don't worry about it."

"Uh-huh." Miyu crossed her arms, still unsure about Fay's disregard for resuscitating unknowns, "You sure you know how to use that thing? Like I hear you only just managed to pass your medical exams."

"His suit put him to sleep before impacting the planet so his muscles would be nice and relaxed, not tensed or he'd have broken bones all over." Fay placed the tip of the needle on the open wound on the alien's chest since it's in the same place as the heart. "Hopefully the adrenaline in this thing should be enough to wake him up."

Fay pressed down on the pen until it made a click, propelling the fine needle through the alien's burnt hide; the injector flashed red indicating the epinephrine (Adrenaline) had be delivered but the canine remained still unaffected by the dose. The spaniel split open one of the dog's eyes, he had large turquoise blue eyes with a faint cloud like coloration of purple, running a light across it for any dilation, none at first. When she did it again she was taken by surprise, the dog launched his left hand up to her throat, choking her while he used his right hand to disable her left arm that had the small light in it, suspecting it was some sort of weapon.

Miyu tried to get a safe firing line at the armored canine, but Fay was block the shot. Using her as a shield he slowly got up and out of the small bed looking dead into Fay eyes. She was panicking, her vision was slowly blurring to a grey. It was nearly impossible to breathe with the alien's vice like grip around her neck, she tried to use her free hand for leverage but he was lifting her off the flooring just enough to stop her from being able to breathe. Noticing the spaniel's closeness to fainting he relinquished his grip around her neck and arm, spinning her around, back to his chest and un-holstering her blaster from her waist and pressing it again the side of her head.

Fay was all but limb now, feeling light headed and deprived of air she hadn't the slightest idea of what was going on. "Let her go!" Miyu commanded the dog, still trying to get a guaranteed shot on the alien.

"Three seconds, and I'll shoot! Three... Two..." Miyu pressed the trigger with inch of firing when she noticed her gun was faintly glowing a bubbly purple aura and shacking, before she could fire off the stun round the gun violently jerked up smacking her square on the nose sending a numbing wave of pain up her face, causing her to accidently sending a shot straight up through the roof of the tent.

Miyu stumbled down onto her tail from coupled effects of the surge of pain from her nose and the shock of the unexpected gun shot from the frightening close range, she did her best to maintain her cool by trying to pretend the pain wasn't apparent. After wiping the blood from her nose she re-aimed her blaster at the hostage taking alien.

He scoffed at the lynx's even demising power in the situation, feeling the adrenaline wearing off his weight shifted slightly to the left with the feeling of his chest being on fire, he shoved Fay out of his reach onto the rubber flooring, tossing her blaster near her. The canine backed up to the corner of the room, falling onto his knee in pain, taking deep slow breath in.

Fay got up taking aim at the viable wound on his chest, sending off the white stream line bolt of concussive energy speeding towards him, impacting with the sweet sound of crippling thud, if anything Fay was felt allot less angry now she'd gotten even.

The dog yelped in pain, warping his arms around his chest and bending over, using his back as a shield, yelling out in a foreign language that defiantly wasn't Cornerian, Venomian or even Saurian.

Fay helped her friend up, both training their guns on their new '_friend_'. "What did he say?"

"I don't know, I'm not a friggin' linguist. You ask him..."

"Me!? If you didn't notice I was almost choked out!"

"Well I guess you know him better then."

Fay rolled her eyes, she got down the alien's level aiming her gun as close as possible to his head, gesturing with her finger for him to look up. When he did Fay hit him across the head with her gun, almost knocking him off balance. "What the bloody hell was that for!"

The two women were taken back, one second he was shouting in some alien language now he was speaking in perfect Cornerian. "Like far out, I did not deserve that! How would you like it if I shot you point blank in the bloody chest then smacked you across the head with rock!?" his accent was different as as well with a low raspy quality to it, defiantly not from Lylat. "Imagine if I had woken you up from-"

"Shut up!" Miyu roared at him, taking him by surprise with her sudden burst of rage, he did as told. "Now, I've got some questions for you buddy and you're going to answer them. Understood?"

He nodded with wide eyes, "Y- yes sir, I mean mam"

"Where you from?"

"Uhhhh- Kew, yeah Kew."

"Why are you here?"

"...Bad warp jump?"

"Who shot you?"

"Shot?- Oh, that- that's was umm self-inflected, yeah."

Miyu got down to eye level with the dog with a seriously intimidating look on her face, "That is the biggest damn lie anyone has ever told me, where we're going they're going to lock you up were the sun don't shine."

"Been there, done that." he blinked rapidly, trying to avoid her gaze.

"You-"

"Ahhh, Miyu we've got company." Fay spoke up, interrupting the lynx to look at the holographic screen. On it was a large transparent blue square with a green circle to represent their location, outside from that where range lines or range finders all spaced one hundred meters (109 yards) from the next. The furthest line away was five hundred meters that had red triangles surrounding them, all giving off a Aparoid signal. "Aparoids, lots of them..."

"How long before they get here?" Miyu asked.

Fay tapped a few keys, the weather outside was dense blizzard and wasn't showing any signs of easing up."In these conditions maybe in a ten minutes at max, what me to send that emergency broadcast to base?"

Miyu nodded, "Do it." she turned to the dog sitting in the corner of the room that now had a bleeding nose, "What's with you."

"Me? Nothing, nothing at all." he said covering his nose to stem the flow of blood.

"Looks like we're going to have to help each other out here, there's these big ugly metal space bugs coming to get us and so I think we should get to better know each other, what'dya say?"

The canine look around the small room, "Alright..." he said with a weak smile.

Miyu smiled back warmly, extending her hand. "Miyu Lynx, lieutenant of the Cornerian Military, special ops division. And that there behind me is specialist Fay Daniels."

"Hi." Fay said with a quick turn of her head before returning to her typing.

"Feroes Voux." he grabbed hold of the lynx's hand, giving it a shake. "Not in any kind of military, Miss Lynx."

Miyu lifted him to his feet and seating him on the bed, "Do you know how to use a gun?"

He nodded "Yes, but I seem to have misplaced it." Miyu moved over to a large locker, swinging it open displaying all the bits of equipment Fay and Miyu had pulled off him when they found him. She reached in, grabbing a sheathed one handed sword with a bent hilt and a funny looking blaster; tossing the two weapons to the best landing next to him. "Could you also throw me that small silver case?"

"This one?" she grabbed a small rectangular box, no bigger than the palm of her hand.

"Yeah." Miyu under arm threw it, not sure how fragile it was. He caught it, flipping open the case and pulling out a small white strip.

"What is it?" the lynx asked as he stuffed the strange material in the side of his mouth.

"Bio-regenerative gum, uses DNA from your saliva to better heal your cuts and what not." Feroes spat out the gum, it was more a thick rubber like foam he rubbed on the burn. When it contacted the blistered hide it hissed and fizzed making the lynx cringe, "Ow yeah, loads better." he said biting him bottom lip.

"How long Fay?" the spaniel shrugged at the question, the Aparoids had jammed their communications soon after appearing on the radar and where attempting to upload a virus onto the computer to stop the emergency signal from being broadcasted to the relay buoys in orbit around the planet. Luckily for Fay it was child's play, the virus was primitive at best and lacked the coding to avoid the spaniel's much more advanced counter measures which would isolate the main files and upload important lines of code to her wrist computer for analysis later.

"Done, but I'm not sure how fast who ever is coming to get is going to here."

"We'll just have to hold out long enough then..." Miyu turned to Feroes, "Can you move around better now?"

The canine took to his feet, stretching his arms. Attaching the sheathed sword to his back, magnetically locking into place and the strange pistol attached itself to his thigh guard, "Good to go Miss Lynx."

"How far out at the Aparoids now?" Fay maximized the radar image, the Aparoids were almost halfway to the campsite but seemed to be slowing down for something else.

"Not long, but they seem to be slowing down... Oh that's- that's not good."

"What is it?"

"Moths, two of them... Um, is it to late to say I told you so?"

Miyu stormed out of the small medical wing into the entrance/living area, opening all the view ports to shoot out of when the android insects arrived. They hadn't brought any light weapons with them since they hadn't anticipated the Aparoids to still be functional in the Lylat system, sure there were the odd one or drone class insect still walking about with no purpose but the on coming force was organized more so than the main force that attacked Corneria. Picking up the heavy duty winter coats they'd used earlier, Miyu knew they weren't going to hold out against a small swarm of Aparoids particularly in this weather running out into the blizzard seemed the best way to evade them if help didn't arrive within the next few minutes.

She came back in and threw Fay her favorite pink stripped jacket, "Alright here's the plan you two, it's an absolute snow storm out there so that means little to no viability you'll just have to go off your radar Fay. Now if the shielding around this site is breached we turn our tails and run, okay? sound easy enough new guy?"

Fay raised her hand, "Yes Fay?"

"Are we still up for that deal?" Fay asked with a smirk.

Miyu shook her head annoyed, "Not funny. How about you Feroes? Any input?"

He shook his head in disagreement, "None Miss Lynx."

"Good, Fay pack up what ever you need to take with you, Feroes you stay in here with her. I'll be in the next room keeping a watch." Miyu finished zipping her jacket out and went back out into the section of tent she was in only moments ago.

Fay went to work, shutting down and disconnecting all the pieces of electrical equipment for departure, most of it was bulky long range communications gear and basic field research equipment they commonly used when on long missions in remote areas in the Lylat system were the military force in not readily available for pickups and drop-offs. So what ever they needed to take had to be durable, reliable and versatile, very important traits Fay made sure of before selecting the gear to take.

As she went about dismantling everything with haste Feroes stood and watched in the dark, he wanted to ask if he could help but everything around him was alien making him paranoid about breaking something. Before he could open his mouth to ask a voice in the back of his head faintly screamed, making his ears perk up to make sure he wasn't just hearing things, it isn't every day you hear a distinct voice yell at you in you're mind but this was different. Feeling his heart beat was speeding up, he twisted and turned around the room desperately looking for what ever it was causing the voice in his head.

"Done." Fay popped up from the floor, dusting her hands. "Whats up with you?"

He didn't reply, just stared back with horrified face. Before she knew it he was tackling her into the neck room, her hearing was deafened like an explosion had gone off right next to her completely dazing the spaniel. When she opened her eyes, Miyu was yelling and screaming at her eventually she was lifted to her feet by the alien canine when Miyu had disappeared from her sight. Fay turned her head to see were she stood moments ago was in flaming tatters, looked like had run a giant saw blade straight down the middle of it.

Miyu stood at the door way, wildly waving her arm about meaning they were leaving. Fay stumbled too it still not able to hear properly, it didn't help the flooring was uneven. A meter before reaching the lynx Fay put one foot wrong, and went down with a turn of her ankle. Miyu slung Fay's arm over neck to hoist her up to her feet, Fay took another step with the same foot but yelped in pain when the heel of her foot touched the floor.

Feroes peeled Miyu from Fay's hold, he grabbed Fay's left arm and pulled it over his shoulder forcing her to lean over his back, he pushed upwards with his legs resting Fay across his shoulders fireman style, the hilt of his sword poked into Fay's soft side but the problem was secondary compared to the rushing Aparoid swarm. As Miyu vanished into the blizzard Feroes followed with Fay on his shoulders, looking back she could see the bright lights from the Aparoid crawlers decimating the camp, ripping up ever inch of it in search of the three.

If help didn't come soon, the military was sure to find them face down in the snow.

* * *

_All nice and re-written :D_

-Point Caliber.


	4. Welcome to Lylat

A/N: _Hey guys, sorry about the short hiatus, had a sudden burst of due assignments before the years out. Now I will try to make the chapters longer, more entertaining and above all really make it enjoyable to read. I also started to rewrite the earlier two chapters, they make more sense and stuff... and yeah._

_Comrade – I'll try not to over exaggerate anything :3_

_Bryan McCloud – Think you might be getting some where ;D_

_But anyway! On with the show!_

* * *

**Chapter Three**

.:_Whiteout_:.

.:_Present Time_:.

* * *

"Various Aparoid signatures detected on planet surface." ROB's monotone voice broke the soft computer noises of the bridge, interrupting Krystal and Peppy's conversation on the document. Fox, Slippy and Falco were already making their way down into the hanger bays, Falco was feeling a little happier than he was a few minutes ago. Maybe pickup missions weren't as boring as originally thought, still it wasn't fun getting from the bridge to the hangers since they we're split into two separated bays, forgetting which one your Arwing was docked became an annoyance for the team.

The trio neared their Arwing IIs, jumping into their respective ships. Closing the canopies, initiating the start-up sequences for the G-Diffusion systems, Fox switched on the privatized channel system Slippy designed for secure radio chatter between the StarFox tagged ships.

"Status report." Fox radioed to the other Arwings, Falco pressed a few holographic keys displaying the Arwings diagnostic summary in a 3-D image of the ship colored in a bright green; indicating all systems where nominal.

"Falco here, good to go buddy." The avian replied, closing the displaying tightening his grip on the two control sticks ready to launch.

Slippy undertook the same procedure as Falco, pressing the same keys displaying the same 3-D readout, also filling in with a green, "G-Diffusion are green Fox."

On the bridge Peppy had a massive holographic display on-screen of each Arwing and its current status, same as the diagnostic that can be displayed in the Arwing cockpit. Next to that he had a snap satellite image of the camp in flaming tatters, cut straight down the middle and the frozen stills of the metal carapaces of the Aparoids both on the ground and in the air, following something that took off aimlessly in the brewing blizzard.

"Fox, are you sure you don't want me to join you?" Krystal spoke, feeling somewhat left out as she overlooked the large holographic images on the screen of the Aparoids heading into the blizzard.

Fox bit his bottom lip, he didn't like leaving anyone out of anything especially a mission that had started to go sour, but apart of him felt relived he wasn't dragging her into harm's way.

"We need you there Krystal, we can't fly through a blizzard without you guiding us." The vulpine said half-heartily trying to sound assertive in his decision, the Arwings have a virtual scanning mode that would paint a color coded outline on anything that emitted a radio signal almost like sonar, but the natural terrain wasn't coded, mountains, trees and anything else above the planet's water level, made flight through zero visibility conditions very dangerous.

Peppy looked up at the blue vixen with his hands behind his back, nodding to Fox's response. "He's right you know." The hare said, pointing out on the satellite image, "That's a quite a blizzard they're flying into, you'll do more here than what you would out there." Krystal turned to the old hare with a slightly confused face.

"But they still need more than that Peppy, you've seen me fly, I can handle myself." She said trying to force Peppy's permission for her to jump into her Arwing and launch with the others. Peppy zoomed in on the slightly pixelated image of a smoldering structure of what used to be a tent; he zoomed in further on small boot prints heading into the blizzard.

"Even so, we'll need you to focus on the survivors and that's concentration you can't pertain to while flying through a blizzard littered with Aparoids." He concluded "ROB start the launch sequence, I'm sure they want to get down there." ROB replied in his usual monotone voice, walking towards the hanger bay control terminal; pressing the necessary keys to active at the launch sequence for the docked Arwings.

"Hanger bay shielded; _Disabled_" ROB announced over the loudspeaker, the undercarriage arm the ships sat on retracted down in the floor of the bay allowing the three Arwings the hover for a few seconds.

"Beginning magnetic thrust sequence." The droid pressed a few more keys on the panel bringing up a holographic display of multiple hexagonal shaped icons flashing red, ROB pressed a large green circular button, changing the red colored hexagons to a bright green.

The Arwings were launched out of their temporary free float and into the vast black void of space, Fox set his G-Diffusion to maximum output for the decent into Sauria's atmosphere, Falco and Slippy did the same. "This is going to get hairy team, so make sure to have the VSM active, Slippy I want you just above the blizzard scanning for any military channel you can find while keeping our backs covered."

Slippy broke into a smile, relieved he didn't have to go with Fox and Falco into the Aparoid filled blizzard "You got it Fox." acknowledged the toad.

"Falco, you'll be my follow through keep close, stick to my trail." Falco cocked a brow at Fox's order; he'd never liked to follow someone's orders especially when heading into fight.

But he was reluctant to accept it, he knew what Fox was asking him to do was relatively minor and probably for the best, "Just this once." The avian replied slightly disgusted.

As the three ships followed by the Assault Carrier disappeared into the pearly blue atmosphere there was a strange feeling lingering around in Krystal's head and stomach, she wasn't sure either it was she didn't get to go with them or because she was going back to Sauria.

"Are you alright Krystal?" Peppy asked, the vixen shoot her head out of the light day dreaming state she was in.

"Yes, Peppy. I'm fine, thank you." She politely replied, as she looked out at the planet. "Just haven't been sleeping well lately."

Peppy let out a quiet _'hmm'_, he prided himself on knowing the team's current metal state, more or less someone you'd talk to get something off your chest. He was worried for the vixen, she'd never been one not to tell you anything, something had to be bugging her maybe it was the genocide of the Aparoid race, maybe the devastation on Corneria or the ghosts of home have caught up to her.

* * *

.:_Minutes Later_:.

Miyu could feel her fur get progressively wetter and wetter by the second, her facial muscle freezing up, making it particularly hard to speak. The lynx wasn't sure where she was leading Fay or the alien through the blizzard, but at this point anything to evade the Aparoids seemed like a good idea but this wasn't, even with winter gear it was going to be the cold that killed them, not the Aparoids.

Fay was still distraught about their tent outpost being cut into two half's like paper, she'd never brushed with an Aparoid that closely before and with her ankle sprained she felt helpless if they were to get ambushed in the coming minutes. But she was happy to be carried around by the alien over his shoulders fire man style taking comfort in warmth coming off the back his neck; not having to do the hard work herself was great, all she had to do was try move as little as possible and watch their backs.

However the Aparoids were right on their trail, firing pot shots at them from the cover of the blizzard some would impact close to them but not dangerously close. "Where are we going Miss Lynx?" Feroes yelled over the howling wind. "I may be wearing a multi-environmental flight suit but I ain't going to last long out here!"

The lynx squinted at her wrist computer trying to shield her eyes from the knife like snow particles, she brought up a virtual map in a fuzzed holographic display continually distorted by the heavy wind. "I don't know, anywhere but here I guess!" A few yellow shots flew past the small group, one just skimmed past Fay's head just inches away.

"Miyu, we gotta get outta here!" Fay shot back at the direction she saw the muzzle flashes originated from the Aparoid crawlers.

Feroes looked up the snow blanked sky, squinting at the sun almost if it was calling to him. "Follow the sun…" he muttered, Miyu turned to the canine.

"What?" She yelled with her right hand over her eyes. "What did you say?"

Feroes looked back down to the lynx, "It's an old saying!" he yelled back, pushing his way through the snow in the directing of the sun, "Hey, Hey!" Fay shouted over his shoulder taking notice of his change in direction, "Where you going?"

"The way we should have been going in the first bloody place!" Fay got agitated had his rude response using her free left hand to smack him over the ears; he growled exposing his fangs "Do you want to crawl to throw the snow Miss Daniels, do you?"

The spaniel didn't reply she just remained silent forgetting he was the one carrying her around on his shoulders. Miyu wasn't far behind the two, continually looking back at the tracks they'd made hoping the wind would fill them with snow to slow down the Crawlers.

"Are you sure about this?" Feroes turned around to the freezing lynx. "One hundred percent sure, just… trust me alright?" Miyu nodded, something reassured her he knew what he was doing.

Every few minutes the wind would violently shift direction, throwing them off balance and the screeching sounds from the Crawlers weren't far behind either. Miyu tried her best to keep up with Fay and the alien, her legs felt like they were about to turn into some sort of frozen food same with her face.

As they pushed their way through the freezing elements, the faint whistling sound of small ships flying overhead; progressively getting louder and louder each second, a faint static voice began to speak through both Miyu's and Fay's wrist computers.

"This is F- McClo- of the- team, can any- me?" the static voice fuzzed over the howling wind. "We are- your signal, h- copy?"

Miyu turned the power up on her wrist computer to minimize the static and bolster signal strength, "McCloud? Can you hear me? It's me Miyu!"

"Hey, hey look who it is." Falco's voice responded very coyly. "Still getting yourself in trouble eh?"

"Shut it bird brain!" snapped the lynx, clearly not in the mood for jokes. Fay couldn't help but grin at her friend's sudden outburst. "Now, we ain't got long until these Aparoids catch up to us, any idea's McCloud?"

"Miyu, Peppy. I have an idea, but it isn't the best idea I've had in a while." At this point any idea or plan was great.

"There is a cliff face, not far from you're current location. We can level the Carrier's hanger bays long enough for you jump across." The hare advised forwarding a nav-marker to her wrist communicator, Miyu looked at the injured spaniel and nodded.

"How far?" she asked, "Not far keep going in your current direction, the boys will give you cover." Peppy replied, as a holographic marker appeared pointing in the direction of the cliff.

"Did you hear that Lombardi, you're going to give us cover" Fay shouted out, tiring to mock the pilot.

* * *

"McCloud, Miyu. We've had these crawlers on our tails for a while and two moths, but they took off somewhere, reckon you could deal with for us? " Miyu's distorted voice came through the cockpit of his Arwing, he activated the VSM; a large transparent, blue colored rectangle appeared over the entirety of his windshield with the word 'Scanning' in the middle.

After a few seconds the vulpine could see fourteen red outlines roughly twenty odd meters behind two blue ones, "I see them, Miyu. Falco, you see them?"

"Yeah, yeah, I see 'em. Let's stick it to these scum bags." Falco jerk the controls of his Arwing, forcing it into a sharp decent towards the Aparoids, as he went descended through the white cloud a bright red proximity warning screamed at him to pull up.

"Go work their Falco, you almost took on Ice mountain nose first." Slippy's mocking taunt laughed at him through his radio.

Fox flew directly over the group of Crawlers, preparing a charged shot as he dived towards them. The lock on symbol flashed over the Aparoids once he'd flown close enough, he released the trigger and pulled up leaving the bright red strobe to sunder its way through the blizzard. It impacted the mechanical insects with great effect, utterly blowing them to smithereens.

Strangely enough, the explosion from the plasma had given way to a secondary explosion, with an immense purple shock-wave radiating from the now destroyed Crawlers. It knocked over Miyu and Feroes, Fay slid off his back disconnecting his sheathed sword's magnetic hold to his back causing it disappear under the white powder.

They struggled back onto their feet; it'd felt like something had hit them in the back like a speeding F-Zero racer. "Is he trying to bloody kill us!?"

"McCloud what the hell was that?"

"I- I don't know, you were out of the blast radius, there's no way it was me."

"I bet it was that hot headed reject friend of yours then." Fay chimed in.

"WHAT?" Falco yelled over the radio, "I was nowhere those damned things!"

"That's enough you two, you've got two more coming your way." Peppy intervened to stop a possible fight between Miyu and Falco. "It looks like our missing Moths, on your six Fox, Falco."

"Got it, Slippy stay with Miyu's team, we'll take care of the last two Aparoids." Slippy sped up to catch up with the group on the ground and then eased off the throttle just enough for him to be able to circle around them.

* * *

Feroes slung the injured spaniel over his left shoulder, wrapping his arm around her thighs so she wouldn't slip off, so he could use his right arm to shield his head from the wind. "How much further?"

Miyu reopened the communication channel to the incoming carrier, "Peppy, how much longer until we're there, because we can't see were we're actually going." There was a long radio silence, nothing but Slippy's Arwing, the howling wind and their boots crushing the snow could be heard.

"Not much further only, we're almost there you'll be able to see our search lights soon enough." The hare finally replied, a heavy humming noise could be heard directly in front followed by another change in the wind direction.

"Visual contact established, powering forward search lights." A robotic monotone voice radioed the lynx. Dim red lights gleamed through the snow directly at them, "One hundred and thirty two meters remain, please continue towards the ship."

They continued to push their way through the thick snow towards the red lights that shone under the sun, something about seeing a color other than the grayish white of the snow felt good for Fay and Miyu, like the feeling you get when you're finally going home after a long strenuous day, but the feeling wasn't apparent to Feroes.

Faint plasma blasts echoed from behind them as well as the moth's high pitched squealing like noises, "Watch it McCloud you almost took my damn wing off." Falco exclaimed over the radio, "Again? Really, Fox you're getting rusty, let me show you how it's done buddy boy."

A thundering screech blotted out the ambiance of the wind as the first moth was violently shot down, crashing into the snow in a blazing red and purple fire ball by one of Falco's nova bombs. "Nice one Falco, about time you helped me out for once."

"Less celebrating, more shooting there's still one more out there." Peppy interjected before Falco could say something.

"Blah, blah, blah, jeez Peppy, you oughtn't calm down you know, might burst a brain cell, especially in your 'advanced' age."

Krystal stood at the cusp of the hanger, stretching out with eyes and her mind to guide the escaping group to safety, it was difficult to see anything in the blizzard but the red search lights gave some reflective leeway to spot out anything moving towards the ship, "ROB, how far away are they now?" she said into her throat microphone.

"Targets nearing thirty meter mark, they will enter you're visual range shortly."

Krystal could telepathically feel two of them getting closer which she recognized as Miyu and Fay, but no third one, it was like she was actively being blocked out, almost like two magnets with the same ends trying to be forced together to join, a mental block was as close as it got; She shook her head lightly to pull herself out of the same trance like state, refocusing on Miyu and Fay.

Three shadowy figures emerged from the white wilderness, one at the front in a black metallic body, with what appeared to be the fluffy white tail of a spaniel flung over his shoulder heavily dressed in white gear, same with another body pushing its way through the snow beside him, as they neared Krystal extended her hand for them.

The lynx was first at to the ship, she grabbed hold of the vixen's warm soft blue hand, as she was pulled into the ship's hanger she collapsed onto the metal flooring, quickly ripping off her soaked gear until she was only left with her thermals fiercely rubbing her stomach to rebuild her core temperature.

Fay arrived seconds behind the Lynx, she was gently off loaded by the armored canine Krystal had read about in the report, Fay let out a quiet shrike of pain when she tried to walk on her feet, instead she just crawled on her tail towards Miyu. Krystal extended her right hand out to the canine; he grabbed hold of to as hoist himself into to the ship, she got a good look at his face and thought '_Have we met?_'. He rested on his chest before rolling over on his back trying to get his breath back.

"Peppy they're on, we're clear to leave."

"Wow, just one thing before we leave guys." Falco interloped, "We've got fireworks." The four looked out into the blizzard, watching as yellow streams of light came closer and closer towards the ship.

Fox and Falco's Arwings emerged from the cloud, breaking left and right as the colossal moth followed them, "Firing missile at Aparoid target." ROB's voice echoed over the loud speaker, a loud sound of charging weapon hummed through the ship. 'POW', a loud blue explosion ripped through the middle of the Moth, horribly disfiguring it into small flaming debris, scattering all-over the place.

"Ha-hahhh, not bad for a tissue box." Cheered the cocky avian from his Arwing, the carrier banked left, causing everyone in the hanger to jerk right.

"ROB get us out of here." Peppy ordered.

"Affirmative." The large carrier ship steadily increased its speed and took off back into space, with the three Arwings escorting it out, shooting back towards Corneria.

* * *

.:_Meanwhile_:.

The sun was setting over the vast orange sand desert, faintly painting the horizon with a spectral purple hue. An eerie sight, often provoking a cold spine tingling sensation when looked upon, it really is a marvelous site easily visible from the large gold city that sat in the middle of the barren plain of sand. In the center was a large palace structure, lavishly decorated with large swaying banners, inscribed into its amber exterior, depicting it as the home of the Krazoa God.

Where a large brown tan and black jackal dressed in blue robing with gold lining down the middle, stood in a large open room, overlooking the city laid out in front of him with the spectral horizon behind it. Hurried footsteps echoed from a cyan lit hallway behind him, turning to face the archway, where an exhausted runner popped around the corner, sucking in much air as possible to straighten his posture. He saluted the blue robbed canine, trying not to look at his yellow colored eyes.

"What have you brought me today? I hope this is the news I have been expecting to hear." He said, staring straight at the exhausted runner.

The runner reached into his pouch, withdrawing two small circular metal discs that had a small blue orb in the center, offering them with both hands. "Yes my lord, news from the ATRPC."

He reached out, grabbing the discs out of the tired jackal's hands. He gently pressed the orb with his thumb, making display a block of holographic text, as he red it a grin formed across his face, clearly pleased with the message he let out a quiet laugh. "Excellent, absolutely excellent." He gave back the disc to the courier, again pressing the blue orb on the second. When the second hologram displayed itself, his happy grin dispersed to an agitated frown, he shifted his focus to the shorter jackal, giving the disc back, "You tell them to find more, to redouble their efforts and get foreigner here immediately."

The runner nervously nodded, breaking into a sprint as he disappeared behind into the blue-lit hallway. A small streak of blood trickled down the middle his tan forehead, he lifted his right hand using the index figure to meet with the head of the red liquid, using his thumb he pressing the liquid into his fur, "I'm doing everything I can…" he whispered to himself.

"You wanted to see me my lord?" a voice said from the hallway, the jackal turned to see a nervous ape dressing in a sharp grey uniform, he gestured with his hand for the ape to come in. "Please take a seat."

The ape nervously placed himself on a lavish couch made of black synthesized leather, it smelt new as well. "Now, Saru, I you and I both know our mutual friend in… what is the name of the system?"

Saru cleared his throat, shifting his weight into a more comfortable position. "Lylat."

"Right, Lylat, now our friend in Lylat, requires something rather rare nowadays, something I had in my possession not too long ago. But for whatever reason it's found itself in Lylat now, however it could very well hand _us_ the rest of them without even asking."

"And how, could that come about? I'm sure it would rather fight than just freely give itself up."

The jackal smirked as he turned his gaze to the setting sun, "We simply, sit, wait and watch… for now of course. You see, it could show us more, and more, they're like magnets you see, they're always trying to 'connect' so to speak, all we do is, as I said, sit, wait and watch."

"If you don't mind me asking, how long might that take?"

"Days, weeks, months, years… but time is irrelevant, it's all about how, not when, that makes the difference, which is why I'm going to ask you for a very, _very_ simple favor."

Saru pulled his chin up to loosen the tight straight of his collar, "Anything my lord."

"I need you to return to Lylat, I realize you've been away from there so some time, is that correct?"

"That is correct."

"You will be going back as where when you left, I'll supply you with a transport there, once there you will make contact with our friend and aid him in anyway possible with his current endeavor, is that understood?"

The ape nodded his head, acknowledging his task, "It will be done to the best of my abilities lord Aurelius." He got up off the expensive looking couch and proceeded out of the room.

Aurelius closed his eyes, breathing in the cold clean air, "I know you will."

* * *

"Now it gets serious!" _So it looks like there are plots being schemed outside of Lylat, I wonder what kind of effect that'll have on Corneria, can't wait to upload the next chapter, and who is this 'Mutual friend?' *Dramatic music*_

_Oh an, less than 3 Kit-Karamak, thanks for the advice. :D_

_Anyhow, was this chapter better than the previous two? Suggestions?_


	5. The Eques

A/N:_ Yay, time for the fun stuff! *Rubs hands together* Character development, how exciting *Cheers* Don't worry I'll give you you're Fox/Krystal build up to romance and so fourth, while trying to stay true for what I intend for this story. Can't wait to see it unfold :). Just so you know, I'm not overly amazing with whole romantic thing , but i'll give it go! You've been warned! xD_

* * *

**Chapter Four**

.:_Welcome to Lylat_:.

.:_Assault Cruiser_:.

* * *

Fay and Feroes waited in the ship's medical bay for the med-bot to conclude its analysis of their injuries, while Fay laid still on the table in nothing but her bright red underwear she was paranoid some sort of tiny pieces shrapnel may of pierced her hide. As a red laser ran its way from the top of her head to her toes he couldn't help but notice her fine curvatures as the beam passed over her, to him she was simply bemusing.

"Hey, I just wanted to say sorry for… you know shooting you in the chest and everything." The spaniel spoke up, breaking the awkward silence of the room trying to sound as sweet as possible.

"Hhmm? Oh yeah no, that's- that's fine, really don't worry about it." He looked down to the metal flooring, nervously rubbing his hands together.

Fay rolled her eyes over to the canine trying to redirect his attention from the floor to her "You sure? We could get you another one when we get to Corneria…"

He lightly shook his head in decline, taking a breath in "No, that one wasn't something you can replace easily, it was something I grew up with my entire life, it was like a friend to me, but if you don't mind Miss Daniels, I'd rather not talk about this… really, just drop it."

Fay felt bad for not taking the initiative earlier by not picking it up out of the snow when she had the chance, "Sorry… And it's Fay, you don't have to keep calling me 'Miss Daniels' or Miyu 'Miss Lynx'." The laser had concluded its scan of Fay's body, a display of her right ankle came up on a nearby screen, saying she'd torn her ATL (_Anterior talofibular ligament_) when she rolled her ankle trying to run from the Aparoids, "Well, that sucks, looks like I'm going to be out of action for a while."

The Med-bot placed two small shock therapy pads on either side of her foot that connected to the end of the table by an electrical cord, "Why? Does it make you feel uncomfortable?"

Fay's foot started to tingle with the sensation of electricity through coursing it, making her giggle in the slightest way "Kind of… I'm not used to being referred to 'Miss' unless it's a super formal occasion."

"Really? Well, I thought place like this had to be formal in some way…" he bit his bottom lip, feeling somewhat displaced by Fay's current clothing situation "Sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable."

The bot finished Fay's shock treatment, placing a donut shaped pad on her heel and wrapping the rest of ankle in a tight bandage to minimize movement made by walking, she got up, draping her legs over one side of the table. "Your turn." Using her arms she gently lifted herself off the table.

"I'm fine, thank you."

Fay crossed her arms, with a smirk across her face "You have, its regulation or when we get to Corneria, you'll be tossed in quarantine for weeks." Feroes shock his head, getting up of the small waiting chair he'd been sitting in for the last few minutes, Fay guided him to a small red square indicated on the ground, "Now, take it off, all of it."

Feroes jerked his head back in disbelief, "What? I thought you just spray me in chemicals and that'd be the end of it."

"It no use spraying your armor, unless you live in it twenty-four seven… Do you live in a flight suit twenty-four seven?"

Feroes let out a quiet grow, "Fine but, I'll need help taking this thing off." He used his index figures to indicate to the spaniel, two small thumb sized squares on his back plate, "Now I can't press them hard enough, so you'll have to do it."

"Alright."

"Now when I say, I need you push them as hard as you can, easy?"

"Yup, easy." She said as he laid her thumbs over the small black squares.

Feroes grabbed hold of the cold metal shoulder pads, "Now." Fay pressed as hard as she could, almost pushing the canine off balance until they made a '_click_' noise, mechanical hissing came from his sides as the metal armour disconnected itself piece by piece folding up and under the chest plate, allowing Feroes to lift the heavy piece of equipment up and over his head revealing his grey and white upper torso. He placed the upper part of suit on the chair he'd been sitting on earlier, Fay was impressed, he was relatively muscular, but not the very toned it was more a medium weight build you'd see on those mixed martial art fighting shows not the super toned gym jockey that just looks the part. He turned back to the spaniel, she could see the full extent of his burn injury on his chest, it'd looked as if he'd been shot on from an angle, it's probably why the shot didn't pierce his hide and burn through his chest but it did leave a black suet that ended on his shoulder.

"Now what?" he asked, waking the spaniel out of her stare, "Hello?"

"Right yeah, but you go to take that off." She said pointing to his right wrist; it was encompassed in a metal casting.

Feroes brought his wrist to head height, "This?" fay nodded "Yeah, that."

"I can't, it's on for good."

"What's that mean?"

"It means I can't take it off, that's what."

"How long have you had it on?"

Feroes frowned sucking in his bottom lip trying to remember how long he'd worn it for. "I think I've worn it for… twenty three years… yeah about that long."

Fay raised her eye brows in disbelief, "And how old are you?"

"Twenty six." He said back, sound embarrassed by it all of a sudden.

"So you were three when you had it put on, wow. What happened?"

"Well, long story I was told I'd burned it and broken it so horribly, that they had to use reinforced metal cast to keep it altogether, but I don't find it all that annoying to wear for life, it's made from a special kind of bio-metal that expands over time so it wouldn't make my arm all skinny, but anyways what do I do?"

"Just lay down on the table like I did." She directed him to the white silver table; he sat on the edge of the table curling his tail over his lap, lifting his legs one after the next onto the table it was still warm from when Fay was in, it felt weird to lay down on someone else's warm patch. "Just stay still; we don't want the bot making impromptu incisions."

He began to feel uncomfortable on the metal table as the bot began to scan his chest; Fay's snip at incisions didn't help with the sudden thought the bot would spaz out and start hacking away at his bare chest, "Beginning decontamination, for your interest it would be nice if you could please stay still." The bot said, it had a feminine voice and spoke fluent, unlike other types of droids that where very monotone, it brought one of its many mechanical arms over his chest that resembled a very fine spray nozzle, it sprayed out a very fine mist from the bottom of his chest down his stomach, he couldn't help but suck in his stomach since the vapour was very cold. "Thank you for your patients, now beginning wound recovery."

The same red laser beam traced its way around the burn mark, painting small red grid squares over it "It would appear this wound could cause your blood to become septic, I advise you stay perfectly still, this may hurt… a little." Two large twicer like hands grabbed hold of the rubbery white paste he'd applied on the wound earlier; he could feel the cold metal figures slip their way under the paste and stinging the burn, the bot ripped off the sealant making that cringe worth sound exposing the reddish yellow burn, he let out a muffled shriek of pain, clenching his hands into fists as he bit his tongue to subdue the pain in his chest. "Bloody hell…"

Second came the disinfectant application, it was the same as the decontamination spray but in a brown color, it was applied generously on and around the wound by the droid that seemed unphased by his attempts to avoid the browny orange spray, "Now applying sterile dressing." The bot switched to more applicable set of hands, from under the table it retrieved the required sized dressing, unpacking them and placing them firmly over the burn. The dressing had a fine glue lining making it much more flexible than having a bandage wrapped around the section of the body to keep it on.

"Thank you for enduring the pain, have a nice day." The droid said in its best possible upbeat tone, Feroes scoffed at, rolling his eye. He sat up looking at Fay who seemed to be enjoying herself in the corner of the room, "I would think you enjoy seeing other suffer."

Fay giggled, crossing her arm, "Not all the time, I don't know why but it was funny to see you squirm like a puppy."

"That bloody hurt you know."

"C'mon, it was just disinfectant."

"Get stuffed…" he muttered under his breath to himself using a fake cough to cover what he said.

The sliding glass doors of the bay slid open as an elderly hare walking through with pairs of clothing under his right arm, "I'm looking for one Fay Daniels." he looked up the spaniel with a warm smile, "Ah, there you are." Fay flicked her tail, "Why isn't it the wise old Peppy Hare."

"Wise, not old, and I got a few things for you." Peppy picked up a pair of blue nylon shorts, handing it the spaniel who slipped the on next was a purple t-shit that had a worm away yellow star print on it, "Now I should also tell you that you're uncle is on the link and what's to talk to you once he's done with Miyu."

"I'm guessing that means now?"

Peppy nodded, waving his hand in front of the door to open it for her, "Yup, now." The spaniel, sighed as she walked out into the hallway bare foot, leaving Feroes behind who had no idea of what was going on, "Right, now that she's gone it's a pleasure meet you, Peppy Hare is the name."

Feroes straightened up, offering his hand, "Pleasure is mine sir, Feroes Voux." The hare took his hand shacking it firmly. It was a very genuine shake not a half attempted ones that bluntly tell you everything about the person you're about to converse with.

"Feroes? I don't think I've heard that kind of name around here before, where do you come from?"

"Umm, Kew." He replied with a weak smile as a drop of sweat ran down his left brow.

"Kew, Kew… Heard of it, haven't been there, what's it like there?"

Feroes scratched the back of his neck, "It's… Please excuse my language but, it's a shit hole, yeah, you really don't want to go there, not a nice place."

"I'll keep that in mind next time I think about going on my next vacation." The hare reached down to a green t-shirt and naval blue jeans, "Not sure if they'll fit but they'll do for now." Feroes slipped the shirt on, it was a little tight but like the hare said it'd have to do, "Can't have you walking about with that suit on."

"Yeah, no this is fine, thank you." He nodded respectively, indicating to the hare he was grateful for the clothes.

"Its no trouble at all. Please if you need anything all, just ask."

Feroes smiled at the hare's offer, he'd never asked for anything nor had he'd ever been given anything; Lylat seemed like a great place after all, much better than how the media tycoons on Kew would preach it to be.

* * *

Krystal laid quietly above the sheets of her bunk allowing her mind to wonder around the ship. Thinking hard on why and how their guest was blocking her, she only knew of one person who could do that and it was Andross. When he arrived on Cerinia proclaiming to be a great leader of a far away star system he'd thought intently of a metal barrier to stop the foxes from reading his thoughts, and if one of them did manage to get a glimpse of what was on his mind it was usually deluded, unreadable and distant.

Her father, Marcus of the Crimson Sun, was the first to discover his true intent when he was chosen to be apart of a select group that would act as a personal council for the ape, by then it far to late, the sun had been irreversibly corrupted by Andross's biological experiments that'd been sucking the sun's energy directly from the core.

She turned her thoughts to the last time she'd seen the oracle many years ago at the age of fifteen, when she'd been told of what was to become of her future and how they related to her dreams of a alien vulpine she'd meet and would become her future mate, most other Cerinian vixens would have similar occurrences, but of Cerinian men. It was also on the same day she was given her staff, an invaluable tool she maliciously looked after so it could be passed down to her first child.

Whenever she'd set her eyes on Fox, her mind would lustfully scream out '_Do it!_' but Fox was shy, the thought of rejection lingered on his mind like a bad itch, it saddened the vixen how someone could think like that for their entire life, although it seemed appropriate for the professional standard that their occupation required, no one wants to experience or re-experience the loss of loved ones.

Perhaps time will tell when Fox feels like opening up to her, rushing into a relationship was the surest and fastest way of ending it, maybe if she was to move first it'd make him open up, maybe.

A light knock on her door interrupted the soft humming of her room; she got up to see who it was. It was Fox, nervously standing on the other side, sensing it was possibly a good time to act she quickly got back onto the bunk striking a pose "Come in."

When the door slid open revealing the vixen Fox turned red for a few seconds thinking he'd come at a bad time, "I'm sorry, is this a bad time?"

"No, no, its fine, now is as good as any." She assured him, grabbing hold of his arms, and pulling him into her quarters. "What did you want to see me for?"

Fox looked around the room with a stiff neck, as his heart raced, "Pe- Peppy sa- said you weren't feeling well?" he felt like an idiot for mucking up the simplest question, Krystal sensed his angst she placed her soft white hands on either side of his head to establish a physical link to his mind, and thought of being calm and tranquil.

The amazing ability of Krystal's telepathy is that not only can she 'listen' to the thoughts of others from a certain distance but she can also make a physical connection by touch to directly enter their psyche to see what they are imagining but also to emotionally interact with them, where those emotions transferred are amplified tenfold.

Fox felt Krystal inside of his head, it's like another voice to listen to, it was strange when she had very spoke to him telepathically for the very first time on Sauria, it was comparable to when you think you can hear whispering ghosts in the dark, "Feeling better?" she asked staring directly into his emerald green eyes.

He nodded lightly with a huge warm smile splashed across his face, "Much better thanks."

"Now, to answer your question, I'm fine, the headache is gone and it was very sweet of you to check up on me." She said with a flick of tail, Fox hesitantly nodded as he headed back to the door, before leaving the room a very sudden re-occurring idea popped into his head, "Hey, would you like to maybe, you know… Do something together when we get back to Corneria? I'm not saying you have to but its up to you."

Maybe giving it a kick-start wasn't so bad, eight years of closely working together and not saying anything seemed long enough, now or never right? "I would love to Fox, any ideas?"

"No- not yet, I'll think of something." He said as the door slid shut, leaving him out in the hallway, cheering to himself in his head. Krystal went back to her bunk, listening to him brainstorm things they could do, most involved some sort of moon light dinner at an expensive restaurant, It was enjoyable to listen to the thoughts of someone who really wanted to make a good impression.

It may seemed abrupt to ask her out all of a sudden but there where no Aparoids, no Andross and no more work to be done, so why the hell not? Time to finally let it all out, after all practically everyone on the team knew they had it in for each other, Fox would spend hours of his time helping her with anything, whether it'd be her flying skills, helping her read the Cornerian literature, basically if she needed anything, he would be there in a flash without a second thought.

Peppy even tried to make Fox take her out on a date awhile back, before the Aparoids hit but he always managed to change the topic so he wouldn't have to talk about it. Just the thought of a single date was enough to make him hide, but now a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders and it felt fantastically amazing.

* * *

Slippy paced himself up and down the small R&D lab he asked for when General Pepper contacted them about a new ship they'd be using on a loan, it had everything he could possible needed when he was either repairing parts from the Arwings or upgrading everyone's equipment for a mission. To date the best piece of equipment he'd manufactured was the Personal Absorption Shield or commonly know more by PAS, it was a complete overhaul one the tradition deflector that Fox and Falco use.

Instead of reflecting the shot it would absorb it and turn a small percentage of the transferred kinetic energy into power for the shield to sustain a long duration, however if it takes to much energy can overcharge causing the battery to fry itself and electrocute the user, so he installed a fail-safe system to prevent that were it deactivates itself until the charge has come to a much safer level.

But that wasn't what was bothering him, after the Aparoid home world was turned into an asteroid field most of them deactivated soon after. Since the Queen was no longer around to control them, so there was no possible way what they'd encounter on Sauria was Aparoid. Even if the command signal being broadcasted to them was Aparoid in nature it just didn't seem right, Miyu said the Crawlers and Dragoons where in a perfect sync, which was strange since most of them went around ripping whatever they could find to pieces when the Queen controlled them.

Maybe there was an underlining signal being broadcasted from somewhere inside Lylat, otherwise if the signal came from outside the system he would have been able to pick it up in an instant since the frequency would have been very strong and highly powered. Strange how one simple job turned into a rescue mission, and even stranger how the Aparoids came from nowhere, maybe the guy Fay and Miyu dug out of the snow had an answer.

Slippy hadn't noticed the door slip open behind him while he paced, "Yo, Slip, you seen McCloud anywhere?" Falco asked interrupting Slippy's trail of thought.

"What? Yeah, he went to see Krystal about something."

"About time." The avian uttered under his breath, "Well, see ya."

"Falco wait."

The bird stopped in his tracks, poking his head back into the room, "What?"

"Don't you think it's weird we ran into Aparoid? Like their Queen is dead, there's no way they could be alive or even working." Falco shrugged dismissively, "And? We got to shoot them down, that's all I care about."

The toad shook his head, "Whatever." Falco returned back on his trail, looking for Fox leaving Slippy to his own devices, he brought up a holographic interface with a clap of his hands. Using his hands at the cursor he pressed a large orange icon saying 'Wireless analysis program' "ROB can you re-run the intercepted segment of that signal?"

There was no reply from the bot, until a download interface came up in the middle of the screen with an animated picture of a file flying from one folder to the next, once the download had finished the signal was displayed in four different wave lengths. A green one at the top labelled as outgoing data that was uploaded to who ever was controlling the Aparoids which could have been anything from audio, visual images or data they collected from the computers from the computers in the tent. Red wavelength below that as the received or downloaded data that looked exactly like the one the Queen used to control her minions.

The last two are what really surprised the toad; the third one on the list was a Venom encrypted signal they used for their ship-to-ship communications, but never for controlling any sort of artificial intelligence. Last wave on the list of four was completely unknown to Slippy; random was the best way to put it for him, there was only one wavelength that matched signature It was Krystal's telepathy, it certainly could be strong enough to control an Aparoid unit if used in conjunction with the Queen control signal, but there where roughly twenty Aparoids they'd encountered on Sauria.

Something didn't add up, Krystal certainly didn't control them because the origin of the wave didn't come from anywhere in the know Lylat system, but nor did it leave a visible trace of where it came from either. Maybe it was just a random blast of dark matter the planet gave off periodically, scrambling the sensors of the ship and disrupting ROB's ability to process the data correctly. "Hey ROB, did the planet fluctuate any type of disruptive energy while we where there?"

"Negative, no fluctuations where experienced, all sensory system were operating and peak efficiency. Would you like a statistical readout on those systems?." ROB said back. Preparing the readouts for the toad to look over on the screen. "No thanks ROB, could you maybe start searching the system for that four signal?"

"Affirmative." A animated radar logo came up in the middle of the screen, it span around in circles for a few moments before disappearing "Negative results on signal comparison, would you like me to re-run the search?"

"Nah, we'll just end up hunting ghosts. I'll check again tomorrow, I'm going to see what Peppy's up to better tell him what happened."

"Acknowledged, shutting down R&D."

Slippy left the room as ROB remotely shut down all the systems inside, Since ROB was an older model of PNC (Piloting, Navigation and Control) his on board systems could only handle so much of running process at one time, the R&D room was a very expensive to run, processing wise. And could only be used at certain times, they couldn't afford to replace the bot since he had ample amounts of data on just about everything the team encounter on their missions and was also considered a life long teammate, even information from Krystal's ship was stored in the bot's hard drives and that was extremely sentimental to the vixen.

* * *

The hare led Feroes down the metal hallway to introduce him to their youngest crewmember, Krystal whom also came from outside the Lylat system. Peppy explained her origins, why'd she left her planet of Cerinia and where'd they found her as well, also explaining her telepathy and blue fur color which Feroes assumed to be some sort of body paint.

On the way there he'd met Slippy, which he thought was some sort of large floating mouth. Falco, who seemed all right outside of the cockpit of his Arwing but knew he would turn into someone completely different when he started flying. And Fox, Peppy and Feroes and found him strutting his way back to his quarters, looked like he was on something and having the time of his life, it was kind of funny to see him so happy, like there wasn't a care in the universe.

Approaching the vixen's quarters was dizzying for Feroes, the thought of meeting someone that could very well be the last of their race was gut wrenching to say the least which in turn made it very exciting. Feroes had exchanged glances with her in the hanger, with no real introduction when she pulled him on board. He was frightened of meeting new faces, he felt comfortable around Miyu, Fay and Peppy because he knew their names and they knew his. But a telepath, that was pushing the envelope.

Peppy noticed the carnie's nervous state, as they got closer to the metal door he was taking quick shallow breaths, "What's wrong? Nerves getting to you?"

Feroes trembled as he turned his head to look down to the hare, "You- you could say that… Could we maybe do this later?"

"Don't be ridiculous, she won't bite." He assumed him, as he knocked on the door.

It slid open with a soft hiss of it rubbing against the frame, exposing the blue vixen behind it, "Hello Peppy." She smiled, Feroes went into what seemed like a self induced stasis, his entire body frozen up. She looked completely different without the winter gear she was wearing in the hanger earlier, now she was in khaki shorts, matching tank top. Even if his body had frozen, his eyes caught sight of some peculiar, tattoos on her arms that looked like small white squares that formed some sort of chain around her thin biceps.

"Krystal, this is Feroes Voux, he's from… Kew? Is that right?" Peppy said with a turn of his head, Feroes's mouth creaked open "Ye- ye… yeah... Kew" his heart was racing, bounding against his chest almost on the verge of a heart attack. Krystal extended her hand to the canine; he wiped his sweat soaked hand on his blue jeans and reached out to Krystal's hand. Her hand had a very magnetic aura about it, and a firm grip to match. Feroes made a strange noise, like he was trying to say something but it was being blocked and could just only be made out as '_Nice to meet you_'. Managing to make out what he said, as she politely shook his hand before releasing her grip "Likewise Feroes."

"Thought you could show him around the city, just like when Fox showed you around when you first arrived here."

"It would be my pleasure to show our new friend around." She smiled; causing Feroes to make another flustered noise, "Now to the bridge." Peppy said, directing the dog in the direction of the bridge, Feroes kept looking back the blue vixen sticking her head out of the doorway, watching as Peppy dragged him away. Feroes wasn't sure what overwhelmed, she had such a magnetic energy about her that put this fur on edge, or maybe because he'd just met someone from an almost extinct race of foxes.

* * *

On the bridge of the ship Fay stood barefoot in front of the large holographic upper torso of her uncle, General Pepper, as she tried to explain the circumstances of their partially failed mission. They'd recovered the contents of the ship consisting of Feroes, the pilot of the ship, but had to ditch some of the other tech they grabbed from the cockpit. Even if the aged Labrador was recovering from the Aparoid infection that had almost consumed his body he refused to take a day off his duties as the commander of the Cornarian military, "_Someone else might get it wrong_." was his main excuse for skipping a day at rehabilitation center.

"The Aparoids, destroyed I presume?"

"Yes…"

"And of the pilot?"

Fay turned back to Miyu, who was leaning up against the wall next to the elevator doors trying to stay out of sight of the hologram; she turned back to her uncle with puppy dog eyes. "He's… awake…" the spaniel scrunched up her face, preparing for his loud rant about protocol and how her parents would be less than pleased if their daughter came back in a different state than she had left in.

After a few seconds of a tense silence the General didn't say a single thing, he just let out a woeful sigh, "You know better than not to trust anyone you meet out on the field… For all we know he could of killed you."

Fay bowed her head; Pepper is possibly the best uncle you could get, he could have easily refused her submission to join the Special Cornerian Recon Division with Miyu, but he saw their ability to work together efficiently as something that couldn't be unnoticed.

"Sorry… It won't happen again, I promise."

Pepper rubbed his forehead, regretting what he was about to say, "Fay Daniels, Miyu Lynx, you two are here by placed on active suspension for breach of protocol, four months will be the length of suspension."

Fay gasped in horror, "Four months!" Miyu threw her arms up, angrily pressing the 'down' button on the elevator.

"I'm sorry Fay, you two went against protocol…"

"Who cares! At least we're here now and he didn't try to kill us, he helped us escape."

Pepper let out another sigh, "Doesn't matter… Pepper out." The dog's head fuzzed as the link was disconnected leaving Miyu and Fay in the faintly lit room. Once the elevator arrived with Peppy and Feroes inside, Miyu slipped in as they got out, Fay followed with teary eyes trying to avoid the two men by looking away. "You all right?" the white grey canine asked before the doors to the elevator shut.

"What was wrong with her?"

Peppy shook his head, "She gets a little too emotional sometimes, she'll be fine."

"They were talking about me, weren't they?"

"I'd assume so, but don't worry you're self with that now." Peppy walked to the front of the bridge, peering out into the vast darkness of space. The ship was just coming to range of Corneria, it was no bigger than a pea at this distance, Feroes walked next to the hare, fixated on the planet.

"Is that Corneria?"

"Sure is."

It was quiet the sceptical, from the ship the planet was expanding as they got closer and closer, oceans of vibrant blue, bright white lights from the city that was just waking up on the horizon and open green landmass became more and more visible by the second. It was memorising, from space Kew was a disgusting brown dot against the cosmos with a large acidic ocean, little to no green, thanks to the fact the entire planet was just one huge city, drowning in its own filth.

"Wow, that's something, its so blue... and green."

Peppy made his way to one of the desk terminals, he pressed a few keys on the keyboard making a low shot image pop up on the windshield in front of the bemused Feroes, he backed up from the image to get a better look at it, "Wow, is it really that green?"

"Yes, we're very meticulous with our planet, keeping it friendly for the environment and clean is on the top of our priority list."

Feroes could feel the excitement building up, he couldn't wait to run amuck on the planet, making a metal list of what he was going to see and do once they got there. "Can't wait!" he said with a cheer, as he admired the view something came across his mind that made his tail fall low.

"What's the matter?" Peppy asked.

Feroes didn't say a thing, he pressed the button for the elevator and vanished behind its sliding doors when it arrived. "Everyone is in a rush these days…" the hare muttered to himself.

* * *

A/N: _I got it finished :D I really, really enjoyed writing this chapter. And I think I spent more time on this when what I did studying for my exams... Meh! I wonder got into Fox, maybe Krystal used her telepathy to make him ask her out while she calmed him down? And I wonder if Fay and Miyu will be able to get off their suspension, tune in for the next upload! Please Review!_


	6. Relative Geometry

_A/N - I hope this turns out good, I originally planned for another 10K word chapter but seeing there was little to no feed back I amused people just skim-red it which is fine I understand; so I'm now shortening it to 5k or lower._

* * *

**Chapter Six**

_.:Relative Geometry:._

* * *

Large old-fashioned mahogany wood doors shut off the Pepper's large office from the outside world, giving him the much-needed peace to sort through the day's work with any hassle. He pushed open the wide swinging hinge mount doors with pleasure; the nice clean smell of new furniture greeted their noses. Pepper made his way behind his wide desk, running his hand over the surface of rough textured hard plastic mat, carefully putting himself on his chair not wanting to split any of the stitches that ran up and along his shaved sides.

Falco look position at the back of the room, leaning up against the wall arms crossed, head down letting out a yawn. There were only two seats in front of Pepper's desk, Peppy sat down on the left while Fox quietly protested with Krystal that she should be the one that gets the seat. Krystal reluctantly sat down, knowing Fox there was no way she'd win an argument if he insisted on maintaining his gentlemanly standard.

Pepper took a few moments to wait for the commotion to die down before he started to explain why he brought them up to his office, "Now, why I brought you up here is to tell you some bad news and good news."

The mercenary team looked around at each other, Krystal knew what Pepper was about to tell them and it definitely wasn't good. "As I'm sure you know Krystal, Corneria has had conflict with Venom in the past, thanks to Andross Oikonny." He explained to the blue vixen, to confirm she had a brief outline about Lylat's past. "And as you saw on Fortuna his military force has been left behind which was subsequently led by Andrew Oikonny."

"That then brings me to the bad news, we think Andrew survived the crash on Fortuna and made his way back to Venom. I'm not too sure it's actually him, but Venom has had phenomenal spike in activity lately, huge power surges, construction crews working twenty four seven, building all kinds of structures around the planet, mostly subterranean"

"And if it isn't?" Fox asked, hoping it really isn't Oikonny.

"Then we'll just watch it for now, we can't attack unless threatened first. Might not be anything, just someone trying to rebuild Venom in a new light."

Falco stormed up to the desk, almost pushing Fox out of the way. "If that creep isn't on ice, we better make sure he really is then."

Slippy pulled the avian back, "Calm down Falco, the general said it might not be anything to be worried about."

"Who cares? If something is going down on Venom we better make sure it doesn't happen." Falco protested, throwing his arms to throw off Slippy's grip on his cream silver jacket.

"Sorry Falco but Pepper is right, we can't afford to participate in another war with Venom, not if they have more resources than us. Charging over there guns blazing; not knowing what they're actually or capable of doing is not the best idea." Peppy explained to the angry bird.

Falco remained silent, allowing Pepper to get to the much anticipated good news he said he had. "As for the good news, Beltino was able to reverse engineer the Aparoid virus so that it attacks itself and is naturally flushed out of your system. Expect heavy traffic in the next few months when the colonists return to home." As usual Pepper flicked his red cap on, and stood up behind his desk to conclude the quick meeting a formal manner. "Always a pleasure to do business with the StarFox team."

Fox lent over the large desk to shake Pepper's hand as Falco and Slippy proceeded out, "Glad we could help out General." Fox replied, giving Pepper's hand a firm shake.

"Alright then you kids, scat. Go and enjoy the rest of your day."

"Bye General." Krystal said with a smile, as she slid the chair back into its original position.

"See you later John." Peppy waved goodbye as he closed the doors.

"Who's up for a little celebration tonight?" Fox asked the group, hoping they would want to do something fun now that there wasn't going to be many jobs to do around the system.

"Got places to go, people to see." Falco shook in decline.

Slippy did the same, "Yeah, sorry Fox, I got someone- I mean somewhere to go too."

"What about you Peppy?" Krystal asked the hare, with a look on her face that indicating it would better if it was just herself and Fox.

"Already have plans to see Lucy I'm afraid."

"That's alright Pep, I suppose it'll just me and Krys then." Fox said with a nervous tinge, whenever he was alone with her he would suffocate in the dense magnetic aura she had around her which was always acquainted with a lovely scent.

"I'm sure we'll have a marvelous time, won't we Fox?" The vixen announced as she lent her head on his shoulder, sending a tingle of excitement down his back.

"Umm, yeah sure we will." He scratched the back of his head, smiling weakly.

"I think this is it for a while, until next time." Peppy announced as he made his way out of the building to the south parking bays.

Falco simply shrugged and yawned, feather hands in pocket; making his way in the same direction as Peppy. Slippy was hesitant to leave, he didn't particularly want to leave the company of the team for an extended period of time, not after being together for so long.

"Wants wrong Slip?" Fox asked the conflicted toad that seemed hesitant about something.

"Just it's hard to say bye you know?" Slippy replied tapping the tips of his fingers together. "So, bye guys."

Fox and Krystal said their goodbyes to the toad, watching him take off after Peppy since he had been driven here by the hare. Krystal gave Fox a friendly nudge suggesting it was time for them to go as well, Fox like Slippy didn't really want see the team go their separate ways, he'd hoped they would have a fun get together but everyone already had plans.

Krystal seemed pretty clingy, as they made their way to the northern parking bays she stuck to him like super glue, he couldn't blame her, ever since nightmares had started she always kept within a strong telepathic range of him for comfort.

"So… What do you want to do tonight? Like there are the movies, the restaurants? I think… not sure if many of them have been rebuilt yet, we could take a look around if you want." Fox asked the vixen.

She gleamed up at him with her big blue ocean eyes, doing her best to look tired even tho it was early afternoon. "Anything, just anything." Krystal replied, yawning.

"Um, yeah sure… Anything…" He uttered now even more lost on the idea of what to do.

Outside of the military super complex all manner of civil and military vehicles were taking off and landing, making the bay very windy and loud. Fox used his arm to shield his eyes from the particles dancing around in the air. His car wasn't very hard to spot out amidst the commotion, with an aerodynamic sleek chassis, reflective white body coat, wide red line that started at the base of the car which then forked into a 'Y' on the bonnet creating another two red lines that trailed over the top of the car and down the back.

The car was a refurbished version of his Dad's Space Dynamics: City Sprinter which was taken out by an explosive Andross had planted to kill James; instead it killed his mother Vixy when she had to use it to drive to work.

It was a both a good and bad reminder of his family, his sweet mother and her tender heart always trying to do what was best for everyone even if they didn't agree with it, his dad who had the heart of a fearless leader and the soul of a great father. Just looking at the car gave McCloud that fuzzy warm feeling deep inside; Krystal could feel it as well with the same effect of remembering life before Andross.

Fox lifted up the gull-wing designed door for Krystal to hop into the car first, pushing it back down when she was comfortably inside. He went around the front of the car, flipping open the door, taking his place in the driver's seat.

Most civilian vehicles in the Lylat system are fully automated with the option to drive manually, Fox was a manual driver he couldn't stand not being in control of something he flew or drove, and something about driving his Dad's car manually made him feel at home.

Fox started up the car's hover drive engine, purring to life with a sensual electronic vibration like it was begging to be driven. "Krystal?"

"Yes Fox?" She looked over to the vulpine, staring into his green oculars.

He reached up to her head, running the tips of his figures through her fringe. She closed her eyes allowing him to continue what he was doing when he stopped. She opened to see he was holding a ripped up leaf. "It was stuck in your hair."

"Oh… thank you." She muttered, Fox put down the window giving the leaf the flick.

He took control of the dual control sticks giving them a flick upwards enabling the V-Lev engines to levitate the car upwards into the air. The traffic column above always flowed without any stoppage making it hard to merge into since the traffic moved at a constant speed of Mach 0.4, Fox waited for the perfect opportunity to merge into the flowing mass. As soon as he saw his opportunity he sped up, forgetting to turn on the interior gravity simulator before speeding up; so they could feel every ounce of g-force pressing them into the soft seats.

Fox took one hand off the control sticks, reaching over to the control panel on the door and pressing the environmental stability system which regulates the air pressure, temperate as well as the gravity. The car made an assortment of different humming noises until the internal gravity had simulated; lifting all the weight off the two foxes.

"Sorry, I keep forgetting this isn't an Arwing." Fox apologized putting the car on cruise control to play around with the automated settings.

"It sure isn't, but its better than an Arwing tho don't you think?" Krystal's question put Fox in a cold sweat. He knew where she was going with this now that it was just them by themselves since the rest of team made plans to go their separate ways.

"Yes it is…" That was his best response to try and not really encourage anything by tone of voice. He relaxed back into his seat folding up the control sticks allowing the auto-pilot to take over for now.

"You know Fox I've always loved Corneria because of how different it was to home. Here everyone is so private but when they open up their almost something different, something wonderful." On Cerinia most of the inhabiting races had telepathy so everyone knew each other even if they hadn't met face to face before.

"I love it too, but I can't help but feel it's missing something."

Krystal lent slightly over the glove box, "What might that be?"

"Ahh nothing in particular" The way Krystal could voice words in such a manner always made him go red. "…Love, I guess." He blushed at his answer.

"What makes you think that?" Krystal asked with a sly tone.

"Well I ahh, I- I don't know, that sort of just came out."

"I think you're right."

"Really?"

"Of course, you have a pure heart Fox. You are unique in that way, it gives you various forms of clarity."

"_Clarity_" Fox thought to himself, that word stuck to his mind. He loved Krystal but he was scared to show it, not because of her possible reaction the feeling was quietly mutual but what scared him the most was their life style, it's uncertainly made him tremble at just the thought of a 'job' coming up which needed them to put their lives on the line. It played havoc with his conscience of every waking second of his life. "I suppose."

The car continued in the column of traffic, travelling over the large grassy plains that lay below dotted by the hundreds of shadows casted by the vehicles flying above traveling to the capitol.

* * *

"What was your name again? I didn't catch that." A pink furred hare asked getting ready to write down Feroes's name for a temporary ID card.

"Feroes Voux, spelt V-O-U-X." he answered feeling slightly nervous about having his name written down, the hare nodded in acknowledgment.

"Home world?" she asked.

"Kew" Feroes hesitantly replied.

"Date of birth?"

He thought for a second, he'd forgotten the revolutionary cycles are different between planets which made it difficult to answer. "I would think, if my history and math is correct which is never the year should be fifteen BLW, the day and month I'm not exactly sure."

"That's alright, blood test should figure out the date. Could you stand up please need to get your height and fur samples" The pink hare asked with a sweet tone.

He got up as instructed letting out a huge yawn the jet lag and time difference was starting to take its toll on the canine, the hare set her data-pad to a scan mode that exhibited a few flashes of orange light. It had calculated he was roughly five foot ten with a body mass of ninety eight kilos. The blood test would determine what kind of species he was along with other information about blood type, history with disease and so on.

Feroes's eyes narrowed on the hare's name tag, even tho he couldn't make out the strange lettering he could only guess what her last name was by compering character to sound. "Hare… Are you by chance related to Peppy Hare?"

"Yes I am, daughter actually, sorry I don't do auto-graphs." She said back with an exhalement of frustration.

"I wasn't asking for an auto-graph Miss Hare, I was brought here by him and that team he works with, really nice man." Feroes complement.

The pink hare extended her hand, "Lucy Hare, pleasure to meet a new face Feroes."

They shook; she looked like a very genuine being much like Peppy, not pretending to be something they're not. Feroes could tell by what she was wearing she had volunteered to work with the authorities to better aid with the painstaking process of sorting and filing the refugees. "The feeling is mutual Lucy."

"Just need your hand again, sorry." Feroes gave her his right hand; she pricked his index finger drawing a small bead of blood that stained the white fur of his digit. Using a small test strip with an absorbent end it sucked up the bead in an instant; Lucy slotted the strip into a receiving port in the data-pad, it showed a new screen with a timer as it calculated the information about his blood.

Once it had finished it showed almost everything was normal except for three anomalies, this wasn't uncommon after the Aparoid's hit they secreted all sorts of micro-pollutants that would work their way into the blood stream and stayed there until it was flushed out, but two out of the three anomalies didn't seem right. The first was amounts vanadium in a slightly higher count than it should be, second strange occurrence was high levels of cobalt in the blood as well, tying in as the same level of iron.

These reading concerned Lucy to a degree, vanadium is a wide spread chemical element and can be found in most foods but in the blood stream and at this amount should of caused some side effects by now like a bloody nose, sore throat or irritable eyes. But Kew is an independent planet, teaming with huge industry constantly manufacturing goods that require the chemical namely ship alloys, possible he was exposed to vanadium oxide that worked its way into his body.

"Hmm" Something about the cobalt seemed suspect to Lucy, like vanadium cobalt is a naturally occurring substance in the body but never gets to the same level as iron, not without thickening the blood, but it seemed in balance a strange chemical harmony or a misinterpretation by the data-pad.

"Is there something wrong Lucy?" he asked bobbing his head down so he could see her behind the pad.

"Nope, nothing." As she closed the window back to the initial report, "Just need to conform this, it says you are from a mix of both wolf and fox, could you tell me which parent was what."

The nature of the question took him by surprise, "Uhh- my father was the lupine and my mother the vixen?…" Feroes had to bite his lip on this question, it gave him a strange sensation in his stomach like he had just uncovered or realized something; he wasn't sure if that was true or not just had to go with it he figured.

"Alright I'll be back in a moment." Lucy hastily left the room with a quick walk holding the data-pad tightly, eager to find out more about this foreigner that had dangerously high levels of elements that should have killed him by now. She may not have been well versed in biology after she decided to take up astrophysics but it didn't stop her from watching televised shows on it.

Lucy couldn't quite put her finger on yet, she heard of a few rumors floating around on the galaxy-net about persons of interest having high levels of cobalt which was natural for them but there was no real conformation of this since there had only been so few spoken about even less seen.

Behind the busy reception was a dedicated terminal room for creating new IDs; Lucy slotting the strip into one the receptacle of one of the large computer prompting a screen asking for required information. Lucy completed the fields that hadn't already been written on the data-pad; completed the computer attempted to send the genetic information to a contracting company's analysis servers but failed without any error message.

Annoyed, Lucy went to the reception to ask one of the Phoenix Corp employees that were also volunteering; she scanned around with eagle eyes for someone who looked like they had the time to help. The pink hair spotted a seemingly procrastinating cat in the lounge room on her tablet; intently concentrating on the hand-held device with the tip of her tongue poking out the side of her brown muzzle.

Lucy approached unnoticed by the long brown haired cougar cross puma, "Ahem?"

The brown feline blinked maybe once or twice before she noticed Lucy standing in front of her, "Oh- Hello!" she put down her tablet and stylus, getting up to greet the hair as she ironed out the creases in her dress. " Didn't see you there."

Lucy took notice an impressively illustrated drawing of a flashy looking canine wearing a bright white suit and fedora in an equally impressive drawn pose, one foot slightly lifted off the ground and a hand holding on the fedora as he looked down.

"Katherine is it?" Lucy asked, squinting at the textured name tag on the bit of masking tape.

"Yes it is, Kat for short if you don't mind." Kat teemed with a graceful energy that infatuated the down trodden atmosphere of the place with a lively positive one.

"Just need to ask something Kat, the servers at Phoenix? Have they been damaged or destroyed in some way when the Aparoid's attacked?"

Kat thought for a moment making lots of different expressions and lots of different humming noises. "Not that I know of- But! I did hear old man Phoenix had to turn them off to power for something more important or something like that. But that's just what I heard, hey! You could transfer the data to our branch at Algolis if you need to."

Lucy reconsider, maybe the readings were wrong; if they were right why he hadn't dropped to the ground yet. "Nah it's nothing major, thanks Kat"

"Anytime!" She gave a small wave goodbye to hare, quickly returning to her drawing.

Back in the last room Lucy decided to skip the gene-identification for now in favor for a more conservative approach not wanting to waste resources on one small thing. The processing was now complete; the machine printed out a card littered with details and a computer-generated mug shot of Feroes slapped on the top-left corner on it.

When Lucy came back to Feroes's cell she found him sitting on top of his bunk, curled up and staying explicitly still. She sensed something was wrong with him; he took short shallow breaths looking he was trying to avoid pain.

"Are you alright? Do you need anything?" Lucy asked not sure if she should get a little closer to find out was wrong.

He took a breath in and held it, "Spontaneous pneumothorax, Just-"he let out the air escape his lungs with a follow through of pain that made him flinch to the right. "I'll be fine, just need some painkillers."

Lucy was hesitant to do what he asked, she knew friends who suffered a similar problem that had been caused by their height. What would happen in the most common case the lungs would become stretched to the point where the protective mucus layer around the organ would weaken and abruptly tear. Judged by still his still abled breathing ability the tear was small; but enough to partially deflate the lung.

"Which side does it hurt on?" She hoped it wasn't the left, then it could be something to do with heart and saying it is a pneumothorax could be a misjudgment for an oncoming stroke.

"Right side, its happened before." he held back a cough that would cause him more pain.

"Okay, okay just wait here." Lucy took off outside for a x-ray imaging device, if it really is just a small tear there isn't much anyone can do about it.

It'd been an antagonizing ten minutes before Lucy came back with the device; prepping it for use by removing the circular emitters and receivers She stacked up the pillows against the wall for the canine to lean against while she stuck the circular pads to the right side of his chest. For Feroes the slight amount of pressure Lucy was applying to make the pads stick made him groan in pain like there as pointed metal rod being pushed down into the top half of his chest.

Lucy skimmed over the instructions printed on the back, "Breath in and hold it." As much as he didn't want to he had to; with every second he held his breath the pain intensified. "Just a little longer"

With a click of the button the device did its job taking a high quality image of Feroes's right lung by bouncing sound waves around his chest cavity like sonar that would relay back to the receivers and come up on screen in a detail black and white like x-ray, hence giving it the dubbing of x-ray imaging device.

On image it showed a faint white depression on the top of the lung spanning one and a half centimeters down just above a black lined gap roughly half a centimeter across. The device drew bright green rectangle around the gap; labeling it the break in the mucus layer, advising the best possible action to prevent more re-occurrence was to seal the gap shut with specialized adhesives.

"How's it looking?" He asked the hare, not wanting to move because of the pain.

"Good… I think, I'm no doctor" she struggled to make sense of the image except tell she was took at a picture of his lung.

"Let me see" Lucy turned the device; letting him see the scan, he relaxed into the pillows with a sigh of relief. "That's good, not that bad yet."

"Yet? What does 'yet' mean?" how could it get any worse she thought, partial deflation was as bad as it could get in her mind.

"Worst case it turns into a tension, in which case you'll need someone to decompress my chest." He cradled his right arm over his chest to stop it from moving and causing pain ensued by muscle movement around the lung.

"Decompress it? Why?" Feroes rolled his eye at the hare's question not wanting to speak anymore but if it got her to understand the possible gravity of the problem she's be able to help if it did get worse.

"Because air will just keep escaping the lung until it's kaput" a cough slipped passed his defense; that was followed with another groan of pain. "Not much else you can do other than wait it out."

"Should I get the medical staff or?"

Feroes shook his head in objection, "No they'll just make of fuss of everything, really don't worry about it."

"Well alright then, if that's what you want" She pulled out the small white ID card and placed it on the wall mounted table, "You'll need this if someone other than me comes through that door."

"Thank you Lucy" he dismissed her in a grumpy tone.

"I'll come back tomorrow morning and see how you are then" she said with a idea looming in her head, "Good night."

Feroes didn't reply; his fatigue already got the better of him. The lobby had quieted down now that most of the refugees had been put in temporary accommodation or reunited with families, Lucy had to find out were this guy was going to go once he is released. But if he were from Kew chances of him having relatives here was slim since all trade with that planet had been severed decades ago.

It was just those little something's about him that struck her with curiosity, his accent which wasn't very common, the high levels of cobalt and vanadium but also the weird feeling she'd get in her head when she was in the room with him, he had to have his name on a database somewhere.

One of the computers at the reception desk was free, with it she could look up his name on registries outside of Lylat. Lucy typed his name into the search engine; it'd take a few minutes to accumulate data from nearby systems and planets that are or had been in contact with Corneria. The list finished with negative results not even Kew had any files on the canine; Lucy couldn't really feel surprised by this she almost had expected this to happen.

She glanced at the time '_eight fifty-two_' Peppy would have made it home by now; maybe he could help her find out were Feroes came from. She dialed up his number on the communication booth with a nervous feeling floating about in her stomach.

"Hey Dad- I'm good I'm good, I got a few questions to ask you about that- no not that, I'm talking about that guy you picked up earlier today because I had to process him and there's… something not right about him did you notice anything?"

Peppy explained his brief time with the canine and seemed to have a similar experience with the strange feeling he'd get in his head as well his unsurety that he was from Kew, "Look I took a blood sample from him and there's some real weird stuff going on there as well, his cobalt count is the same as his iron which was at 168 mcg/dl; that should of killed him, and same with vanadium he's got high levels of that but it just all seems to work."

Peppy went quiet; something must have clicked in the old hare's mind as he pieced every little bit of information together. When he spoke Lucy was taken by surprise, "You'll what? Dad I'm not sure about that- I suppose- Alright fine I'll see you tomorrow then- Yup- Yes I'll make sure he's ready to go- Okay bye, I love you too."

Lucy hung up the link with a stress filled sigh, "_He's got to be out of his mind_" she thought to herself as she grabbed her belongings and left.

* * *

_A/N - Okay! I have two shout-outs for awesome two people! _

_First the ever radiant **Katalicious** for allowing me to put her Cornerian version of herself in this chapter, and if you haven't red any of her stories I highly recommend you do and check out her deviant art as well!_

_And Secondly! **RedRedeption** for allowed me to make special mention of **Algolis**, a planet of his own creation which is in his FF, so go check that out!_

**_Definitions!_**

_- Mcg/dl = micrograms per deciliter._

_- BLW = Before Lylat War._

_- Mach = Is just a measurement of speed for Ariel vehicles, Jets etc._

_- Pneumothorax = Is a abnormal collection of oxygen in the space between the lung and chest wall. (Happened to me xD)_

_As always reviews and assorted feedback is greatly appreciated :D *Ding*_


	7. Exchange

_A/N - I wasn't too happy how this chapter come out in the end, it just somehow frustrated me to write... but I really want to hear you guys think._

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

_.:Exchange:._

* * *

Krystal could feel a tremendous headache slowing encroaching, "Not again…" she muttered to herself letting out a sigh; putting her head back on the head rest. It was the same kind of headache she'd get before a relapse of her nightmares.

Fox turned down the radio as soon as he noticed the vixen pressing the palm of her hands against each side of her head "Is it coming on again?" The vixen nodded, "We'll skip tonight, do it some other time" he changed their flight path for Krystal's apartment; pulling the car out of the sky-way column as soon as they entered the city limits bringing it down to ground level.

The vixen's apartment was located on the outskirts were it was much quieter than the inner-city were Fox lived just the way she liked it; much of the outskirts had been rebuilt and looked almost identical to what it used to prior the invasion. Fox parked the car right out the front of Krystal's residence; a short ten storied building each level with small balconies for every room on every level.

Fox helped the dizzy vixen from the car, sometimes the severity of the headache would completely throw her off her balance almost like a vertigo attack. Slung her arm over his shoulders as he walked for the elevators and hoped they were functional; when he pressed the button it didn't make a tone, didn't even look like it had power yet, not what he needed.

Her apartment was on the sixth floor, it wouldn't be too hard to get up there by staircase but he worried by going up the stairs Krystal's disorientation would worsen to the point of collapse. "Come on, come on." Fox groaned, hitting the up button with the side of his hand with no avail. "We're going to use the stairs, you going to manage that?"

"Yeah" the vixen muttered, when she tried to look up everything spun in a circle making her feel sick in the stomach. Fox pushed past the heavy door into the stair well, he looked up to estimate how long it'd take to get them to the sixth floor. Fox soldiered his way up the first two flights of stairs, stopping on the third to let Krystal rest before taking on the next three.

The last few steps for Krystal were daunting; she just wanted to pass out and go to sleep. Thankfully Fox got them to her door were she gave him the key card to unlock it; when the small LED flashed green he gently worked his way past the door minding the vixen as they came through. McCloud rested Krystal on her couch by stacking up the pillows, helping to put her feet up so she could lie down and rest.

He grabbed the biggest glass cup he could find from her pantry filling it with water. She took a small sip, while lying down; it helped to relieve some of the dizziness and throbbing but not a great deal, this headache was much stronger than the previous ones and wasn't presenting any signs of slowing down. Fox felt terrible for being so powerless to help, all he could do is just sit by and watch, it mentally tore him apart to the very bounds of self-contempt he promised to himself he wouldn't let anything happen to anyone on his team, ever.

Fox looked around her apartment for something to sit one for next few hours; it was obvious she was going to be like this for a while or even longer. He ended up using one of the chairs from the kitchen in conjunction with the coffee table to put his feet on. Krystal eventually dozed off into unconscious with little movement or sound, her facial muscle slowly relaxed letting Fox know the worst of the migraine had passed now he just had to wait for the involuntary movement to start.

What left like minutes for Fox turned out to be hours, he'd been sitting for the past two hours making it 'ten past eleven' but he didn't feel tired at all, he just continually anticipated something to happen and it kept him awake.

* * *

Krystal felt disconnected from herself, thrown into a place where she shouldn't be and unable to move or speak, the vertigo and headache had disappeared. Her body ached at every joint and her breaths were deep and heavy the air cold and thin with echo of her breathing or she thought to be her breathing. A thin line of red light broke through the eyelids as the slowly opened not to her commands; when they fully opened there was only the ceiling to stare at. Again she tried to move but she couldn't all the movement she made felt like strings were controlling everything for her.

She could feel the head drift down, only then she could see more of this strange dark place she found herself trapped in. Looked Krazoan in make; judging by the wavy lined inscriptions on the wall in front. It wasn't from any place from Cerinia she'd been to; the dialect of the inscribing was different and didn't have the continual line pattern like her staff. The head stopped at the legs warped in a layered suit of some sort; she realized now this wasn't a nightmare it was someone else's memory or she'd be able to move about at will not feel like she was trying to push her way through a rubber wall.

The torso turned right sending a rush of pain up the back as whoever she was watching reached for a hard synthetic material upper torso jacket piece that sat on a section of metal bench. Putting it on like a shirt and pressing sections of it making it meld with the skin tight compression suit he worn underneath.

Krystal felt the suit tighten down on the body; the pain was like her migraine but all over the body. The canine let out an antagonizing howl of pain as his body jerked and contorted on the cold metal floor, Krystal could feel it too. Everything went numb, toes, tail and fingers tingled at the lack of blood flow, after the pain had gone joint movement felt fluent again without any creaky restriction.

The man took to his feet now searching around for something else, "Where are you going!?" Krystal yelled out in desperation wanting to know why they were storming through a long dark red corridor to no were. He seemed to know where he was going taking a right up a flight of worn down stairs, every step was light and quick like he was trying to get out without making too much sound.

Krystal felt a jolt of adrenaline as a random presence took her by surprise, popping out of no were on her extra-sensory perception, the body she was stuck in collapsed to his knees coughing and spluttering. Krystal could hear faint whispers in the back of her mind that sounded almost like instructions or maybe directions, whatever it was whispering in the back of her mind had a very distinguished voice.

He struggled back to his feet using the wall for support, the canine continued in a quiet but fast walk. The expansive corridor ended at a hexagonal pad obscuring out from the floor, "What's that?" Krystal asked thinking she'd get a response. He lent over the pad and looked up at the shaft that lead straight up into a dark abyss with a ladders sticking out of the wall, glancing back Krystal nor the canine could see anything behind them and started to proceed up the darkness.

After a few long claustrophobic minutes of climbing up the darkened shaft light peered through ventilation grate at the top of the shaft with a smooth smell of food on the current of wind, Krystal instantly recognized the scent riding on the wind as a popular food from Corneria. As they climbed closer she could hear boots walk around the room, talking in a language she didn't know of. One boot stepped over the grate making the canine flinch at the sudden shock, Krystal sensed a tactile thought brewing in the canine's mind.

Krystal was now just thrown into a heap of confusion now still unable to comprehend what was going on or why she was seeing this. Sure enough she could hear two sets of footsteps leave the room above, the body used his left hand to check how well secured the grate was to the floor; it felt like it was a leaver release of the other side of the grate. He retreated back into the dark of the shaft hitting grate the making a loud noise to attract someone's attention; Krystal heard another voice speak the same unrecognizable language and kept repeating the same few words over like a rhetorical question.

A series of mechanical locks disconnected themselves from the grate; as soon as it moved from it's position the body sped up through the shaft with frightening speed grabbing the canine by his collar and forcibly jerking him down the shaft knocked his head on the lip between the hole and floor; his heart beat was rapid making Krystal feel energetic and very alive. He stormed over the fallen canine picking him up by the collar yelling at him in this strange foreign language that possessed similar words and meanings to Cerinian; Krystal wished she could just close her eyes not wanting to see this dog get violently beaten by the body she was stuck in, just the feel of his right fist meeting the dog's muzzle wasn't something she didn't want to remember or even know about.

He stopped after two consecutive hits; the bleeding canine said a number of things really quickly which infuriated her beyond anything she'd ever experienced before even if she didn't know what he had just said. A third and final knockout blow with the right fist sent the tall dog cold, it felt liberating to hit something that hard, she hadn't been brought up to be a violent person but this being she was watching was.

They dragged the unconscious body to the shaft; removing a small rectangular block from his necklace, carefully lodging his arms and legs in the metal climbing bars so it'd dangle him over the pit while giving them a place to hide the body, the grate slide back into place locking with a twist of circular handle. Krystal's emotions and thoughts were starting to mix in with those of who she was watching, no matter how much she resisted this assimilation of her mind it was too powerful of a memory to break away from making it worse than a nightmare.

Once the heart rate had settled down he stealthily poked his head out the arching door way only enough to check for any others in in the immediate area, none thus far.

The yellow illuminated hallway looked clear enough from all angles and evaluative points, Krystal noticed a sting of thoughts coursing their way through his head; he was looking for some signs or indication of an exit and how to get to it without being detected. Creeping out into the mixed architecture hallway disorientated Krystal to a degree, Krazoan design now mixed with a more modern Corneria layout seeping over to the top of the old metal and stone. Strange.

Three separate corridors ahead branched off into different directions with no signage of any time on display. He stuck his hand out searching for a breeze to come from one of any corridors, sure enough a very light breeze emanated, wavering from the right passage with the tidings of fumes being carried on the wind twitching his nose.

Voices and footsteps approached from behind slowly getting louder pushing him to silently run towards the noxious smell. Each step taken towards the smell the stronger it became until it lead into a vehicle deck, a sub-terrain base used for storing ground based craft. It seemed all too familiar to the trapped vixen; the deck looked similarly constructed to that of the Cornarian HQ, almost every vehicle on the floor below had Space Dynamics inspired designs. It defiantly wasn't Sauria or any known planet it Lylat due to the Krazoan inscriptions being different dialects and language used by the canines earlier.

He covertly shifted position from behind one Landmaster inspired tank to the next; heading towards a huddled trio of Grav-Cycles at the front of the deck. He checked around for anyone else who might be in the area, none. Slotting in the rectangular trinket into one of the smooth-headed cycles handle bars, it hummed to life retracting it's small landing gears; lighting up a holographic display and levitating inches off the ground.

Giving it a small rev to push it onto the lift a heavy mechanical sound the lift made it way up a segregated shaft as two doors above parted letting in rays of blinding sunlight to flood the shaft. Krystal sent a wave of relief and sense of freedom hit her as the lift neared to top, she felt liberated by the light above like she had escaped an eternity of imprisonment. The canine closed his eyes; just listening to the wind circulate around him and the hydraulic moaning of the lift carry him to the top. When the lift stopped he opened all Krystal could see was sand, kilometer after kilometer of sand like Titania.

Looked like late afternoon and three long lines had distorted the sand coming from the direction of the sun so he swiveled the bike until he was parallel. He swang his body over the seat propped his legs onto the foot pegs forcing laying him down stomach flat so his head was protected by the windscreen. Giving accelerator a mild twist shot him and the bike off into the due sea at a screaming fast speed; Krystal hadn't known any Space Dynamics Grav-Cycle or any ground vehicle to shoot off at this speed before giving her the fright of her life.

From behind the windscreen and kicked up sand Krystal could see a tower standing tall behind the shrinking horizon of yellow dunes, gradually the tower gave rise to a city or gold that encompassed the central construct. It looked so similar to the Crimson Sun capitol on Cerinia, golden exterior that absorbed solar radiation to power it, central tower that housed the Spell stones and round design so the entire city can be watched from above.

In the now lost Krazoan archives of Cerinian there were lists of planets with ranking or title next to it to signify its importance. The most important planets were called 'Council' worlds that were major hubs built on resource rich worlds Cerinia one of them and only they had these exclusive cities built on them. Krystal thought this strange because in the Krazoan archives; Cerinian was the only known 'Council' world in existence, removing information form the archives was an impossibility. Unless this planet had been lost before it's recording.

Nearing one of the large gate entrances hoards of denizens congregated in and around the area, most roaming around what appeared to be large transports parked just outside the walls buying and selling goods with the locals. He slowed down a few hundred meters from the crowd; steering the cycle behind the largest transport removing the small rectangular key and tossing it into the sand.

He tore a creamy white cloak from an unoccupied stand flicking the hood as far as possible over his head, seamlessly blending into the cross-walking crowd of canines. Walking through the magnificent gate sent a shiver down his spine of hindering confidence allowing Krystal a fragment of thought of what she was happing which still didn't make much sense to her.

Beggar's Refuge he called it in his thought playing old memories of him watching the day progress from a vantage point above as a pup, Krystal was curious as why felt scared walking up this immensely busy road, it wasn't claustrophobic anxiety more of something was watching your every step schizophrenic paranoia, the more he'd think about it the more Krystal would feel the onset of panic lurch up his spine.

Shuffling through the masses of people was difficult with bodies being pushed against each other only fuelling his growing paranoia. He looked down his right wrist shivering uncontrollably with spurts of pain coursing through it like ice freezing water; paranoia's collar began to constrict his breathing tugging tightly around his neck.

He fell to his knees gasping for air attracting a small crowd around him investigating what was happening. Noticing the forming group he hurryingly took to his feet puffing up a cloud of fine sand grains barging open a gap in the canine wall. Unable to repress his burst of fear he sundered up the long sand covered road en route to a mountains Krazoa palace, dwarfing the city with its sheer scale.

A palace of this size has multiple entrances, leased used and known were the six warp pads surrounding. Breaking left off the road he roamed through dark damp tight alleyways with haste, Krystal felt like she was being chased by something upon entering a small round clearing where a small dome roofed building stood showing signs time has dealt it's damage.

Rushing for the dome building he slipped through the pillars into the center was a dimly illuminating warp pad, its flower like pattern dilated outwards over the glowing glass lens casting an enchanting shadow on the dome. Knowing were the pad would send him he closed his eyes as he stepped up, replaying old memories through his mind of each corridor and passage.

Small blue orbs materialized out of thin air, dancing about until they stuck to his body making the most peculiar feeling Krystal had not felt before when using a warp pad. In a blink of an eye vast space surrounded them as they were funneled down a faint purple tube towards an expanding blue light.

Materialization from warp was never a traumatic experience for Krystal, if anything the worst it was having slight nausea afterward; but for this canine he fell to a numb heap on the pad with a searing hot blood boiling pain starting from the fingertips in his right hand all the way up to his shoulder. He limped up to his feet cradling his dead right arm just managing to deal with the excruciating throbbing pain.

He made way through stretches of long unoccupied corridors leading up into the higher levels of the palace, until reaching a singular grand room beautifully detail from floor to roof with illustrations of the galaxy, small indented circles representing planets, planets that had lines chiselled between them marking some sort of connection that led always the way to the center of the room were a warp pad with Krazoa Spirit markings sat vaguely glowing.

The awe inspiring sight almost made him forget about the pain as he scanned around looking for one in particular planet. There, three feet from the center was the one he was looking for. "Kew…" Krystal muttered recognizing by how similar this map room was to her star chats on her ship she used to get to Lylat.

"It would seem I am interrupting something of importance…" A smooth formal voice punctured the canine's trail of thought making his fur stand on end and ears to fall low. "I had wondered why you left safety's segregation, but it has now been elaborated for me."

This presence made Krystal shudder at the unrelenting cold fear it carried with it striking the very emotion into her heart. The canine turned to face the source of the cold, what he saw took Krystal by surprise. A tall armored grey and white furred lupine with horrific beady yellow eyes, cringe worthy scar running down the left side of his face over his eye, the left ear had a sizable section missing as well like something had burnt it off.

The canine's heart sank, "Ultio… what have they done to you?" he asked backing up slowing. His voice sounded similar to some she had met earlier today.

"It's not what they have done to me, but what they should have done to you…" he gave a little smile as he approached, "If I had not committed my actions your life would have been prolonged, but you have spat in that. There is only one solution I can deem necessary"

"What might that be?" Krystal was trying to figure out why she could now understand why she could understand what they were saying.

Ultio opened his arms into an almost hug like gesture as he neared the trapped canine, "What they should have done so many years ago!" He launched his left fist into the canine's head, nailing him just above the right eye making the brow split; sending him catapulting to the ground putting him in a light daze.

Ultio allowed the shorter dog to pick himself up so he could enjoy the fight ahead, getting into a stance as he prepared for the battle. Krystal saw memories replay themselves about this lupine's fight style; an uncalculated, random frontal assault of brutal punches and heel kicks each delivering bone breaking force.

The shorter canine's abdomen heated up with a tingling sensation, mere seconds later Ultio took a mammoth heel kick at his stomach and without even thinking about he evaded the winding blow like a pre-cognitive function. He hopped to the side almost tripping over the pad but quickly regained his balance.

"There have been forces in play for years that even you can not stop!" He sneered tightening his fists, the shorter canine changed his stance bringing his right wrist to the side of his head to protect it from anymore blow to the already injured area and his left slightly in front for quick jabs at open spots in Ultio's defense.

The lupine charged, ducking his brother's head high swing allowing him to pick up his brother with a double leg takes down. Ultio pinned him down to the floor sending a volley of punches grunting and snarling to either side of his head with enough power to contort his torso left and right, if the canine hadn't covered his head with his arms, he would have been out cold by now.

Noticing a hole in Ultio's defense he grabbed his brother by his mane, yanking him down into a head-butt; their skulls collided with concussive force knocking Ultio off balance long enough for the smaller canine to free his right leg. Using his heel as a piston he pushed the lupine onto his tail; following through with a head high kick.

Ultio, even while dazed he instinctively lent back missing the blow by mere milometers watching his brother scramble to his feet resuming his steadfast stance, made him snicker "You believe that you can stop this from happening? You're hopelessly misguided. I've seen what you've seen and you'll never find it."

Krystal wanted to ask who he was talking about but asking questions in a memory is impossible. "The Krazoa told me otherwise." He said back with a growl tensing up for Ultio's next attack.

"And you accept their lies?" Ultio yelled shooting a lighting fast uppercut that his younger brother narrowly avoided, what he couldn't avoid was Ultio's kick to the right side of his rib cage sending an electrical surge of pain through his chest with a muffled rip or possibly a crack of a bone. Taking the opportunity to finish him off, Ultio grabbed his injured brother by the bit of cloak that wrapped around his neck; throwing him up against the wall so he pummel the sides of his chest.

Krystal felt every crippling hit like they were hitting her as he recoiled off and on the wall. Their chance to escape when Ultio broke his volatile wave of punches and went for the knockout blow to the head; ducking the hit let them slip out from between the wall and Ultio.

He cocked his right arm for a short range hit made more pin-point blows to softer areas of the body that weren't protected; sending the hit straight for Ultio's chin. When the spring loaded fist and chin connected it came with a satisfying outcome for both Krystal and the canine to see a small spray of blood exit his mouth.

Continuing from the first hit he stretched out his right arm and sent the casted part of his wrist crashing down onto the lupine head with just about even ounce of strength his could muster pushing the upper half of his body down; to end the fight he brought his left knee up to his neck height while leaning slightly back to channel the maximum amount of power through his leg and into his heel for the deadly Gastrizein kick.

The lupine was hurled to the wall impacting it hard enough to stun him when the back of his head hot the cold metal of the room. Feeling the chest injury was starting to take effect, beaten and tried canine limped to the warp pad setting himself in a crouched position placing both hands on the faintly illuminating glass. Krystal hadn't seen a pad like this before, nor could she recall anything being said of such a thing on Cerinia.

Crackling sparks started emanating from the glass like upside down lighting, gravity in the room changed dramatically his weight felt like it had doubled as the wind started to swirl around him as a bright blue light from above became bright and brighter until it completely enveloped him causing everything to go black. Not a sound was heard in the black void, nothing but the sobs of a women.

* * *

_A/N - The whole concept of a present time conscience stuck in the body of a past event was really doing my head in, sorry if this wasn't as good as the last chapters. I'm going to stop writing Ultionis for awhile until I feel that my writing style has improved, I just haven't been happy with it since chapter one._


End file.
